Google wants to take AMP to the whole web

Google is trying to make its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology more of a mainstream staple by launching a campaign to make it a standard.

The search company shared plans that set out how it wants to share lessons learned from developing the technology to the wider internet.

"We've long believed that the goal of a user-first web can be built in many ways, but, until we began working on AMP, knowing exactly what that meant and how it could be verified was a challenge," said Malte Ubl, tech lead for the AMP Project.

"Based on what we learned from AMP, we now feel ready to take the next step and work to support more instant-loading content not based on AMP technology in areas of Google Search designed for this, like the Top Stories carousel."

He added that Google has been working on a number of projects with the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Platform Incubator Community Group. Ubl said that the goal for Google was to extend support in features like the Top Stories carousel to AMP-like content that "meets a set of performance and user experience criteria and implements a set of new web standards".

Ubl said that Google planned to enhance Web Packaging for web pages, as it isn't AMP-specific technology, but could be used by businesses for instant loading.

"We now feel confident that with iframe performance isolation through site isolation or cooperative multitasking, web packaging, Feature Policies, iframe promotion, and a document opt-in, it'll be possible to make such features available to non-AMP web content that implements those standards," he said.

"We are taking what we learned from AMP, and are working on web standards that will allow instant loading for non-AMP web content. We hope this work will also unlock AMP-like embeddability that powers Google Search features like the Top Stories carousel," he added.

"We will continue to invest heavily in AMP and hope to provide insights to future web standards on the way. I and the rest of the team are incredible excited about the future of open web and can't wait to see what y'all will be building!"

Rene Millman

Rene Millman is a freelance writer and broadcaster who covers cybersecurity, AI, IoT, and the cloud. He also works as a contributing analyst at GigaOm and has previously worked as an analyst for Gartner covering the infrastructure market. He has made numerous television appearances to give his views and expertise on technology trends and companies that affect and shape our lives. You can follow Rene Millman on Twitter.