Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP): What they are and how to use them

What is Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)?

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source framework launched by Google in 2015 to ensure content renders as quickly and efficiently as possible on mobile devices. For years it was a major part of mobile SEO strategy, but a lot has changed since then.

More than 60 percent of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices, and that share continues to grow. Fast mobile pages aren't just a nice-to-have: slow load times directly hurt bounce rates, time on site, and conversions.

For several years, AMP pages appeared in Google Search with a distinctive lightning bolt icon next to the result. That badge was removed in 2021 when Google eliminated AMP's preferential ranking treatment. The framework itself lived on after that, though as you'll see below, a much bigger change arrived in mid-2026.

Why Accelerated Mobile Pages?

The goal of AMP was to make pages load as quickly as possible on mobile devices. When it launched in 2015, most mobile websites were frustratingly slow, especially on 3G connections, and AMP offered a radical, if restrictive, solution.

AMP limits what you can do in HTML. Gone are arbitrary JavaScript libraries, complex CSS, and heavy ad units. Pages are stripped down to their essentials to render as fast as possible. This came with real trade-offs though: limited design flexibility, restricted monetization options, and the burden of maintaining two versions of every page (AMP and non-AMP).

Major publishers took notice. Starting in 2021, platforms including Twitter (now X), CNN, and the Washington Post migrated away from AMP in favor of standard web technologies. By 2023, Google's own technical guidance had stopped recommending AMP for most use cases. For most businesses and marketers, the calculus has shifted: if you already have AMP pages, keeping them is fine. If you're starting fresh, focusing on Core Web Vitals optimization is the better investment.

Google replaced AMP's ranking advantage with Core Web Vitals, a set of real-world performance metrics that apply to all pages equally. The three key signals are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP, measuring load speed), Interaction to Next Paint (INP, measuring responsiveness), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS, measuring visual stability). A well-optimized standard page that passes these thresholds will rank just as well as an AMP page. For more on how page speed fits into the bigger picture, see our on-page SEO tips and mobile SEO best practices.

AMP's role changed significantly starting in June 2021, when Google stopped giving AMP pages preferential treatment in search rankings, including in the once-coveted Top Stories carousel. Any page, AMP or not, could appear in Top Stories as long as it delivered a good user experience. The lightning bolt badge was removed from search results at the same time.

Breaking: Google removed AMP Cache delivery from Search (July 2026)

The most significant AMP change in years landed on July 1, 2026. Google updated its official AMP documentation to remove all references to the AMP viewer, the Google AMP Cache, and signed exchanges. Clicking an AMP result in Google Search no longer routes visitors through Google's cache. It takes them directly to the AMP page hosted on the publisher's own domain.

Previously, an AMP result would open inside Google's AMP viewer, showing a google.com URL even though the content lived on your domain. Publishers who wanted their own URL to show had to configure signed exchanges, an extra layer of technical setup. Both of those mechanisms are now gone. Per Search Engine Journal's coverage of the change, Google has confirmed that AMP content will continue to rank exactly as it did before. This is a delivery change, not a ranking change.

Is AMP still relevant in 2026?

You can learn more about the AMP project at amp.dev, the official home of the open-source framework.

Given the July 2026 change, the honest answer for most businesses is no, not for new projects. The infrastructure benefit that used to make AMP worth the trade-offs, near-instant loading from Google's cache, is gone. What remains is a restrictive HTML subset with real maintenance overhead and no ranking advantage. If you're not currently using AMP, don't feel pressured to adopt it now.

OK, how do I use it?

If you've read this far, you're likely wondering how you can add AMP to your website or blog, or whether you should bother at all.

If you're running WordPress, the official AMP plugin, maintained by Google, Automattic, and the broader AMP team, is the standard way to add AMP support. It supports three modes:

Most sites opt for Transitional mode to preserve full design control on desktop while delivering fast AMP pages to mobile users.

Install the plugin from your WordPress Plugins panel (search for "AMP"). A setup wizard walks you through choosing a mode and template. Once configured, you can preview the AMP version of any post by appending ?amp=1 to its URL. Use Google Search Console to monitor AMP status and catch any validation errors.

If you're not running WordPress, AMP can be added manually since the framework is essentially a constrained subset of HTML. That said, for new projects, it's worth asking whether AMP is the right approach at all, or whether investing in Core Web Vitals optimization on your standard pages will get you further with less maintenance overhead.

What about the Google AMP Cache now?

Historically, once your AMP content was published, it became a candidate for Google AMP Cache. Google would further optimize your AMP content, strip anything that wasn't mobile-friendly, and store it in a geographically distributed cache so it could be served with minimal network hops.

That caching layer is no longer part of how Google Search delivers AMP results to visitors, as covered above. The Google AMP Cache documentation still exists for reference, but it is no longer the path search visitors take to reach your AMP pages.

If you're not currently using AMP, don't feel pressured to adopt it now. Google's focus has shifted to Core Web Vitals as the universal measure of page performance. A fast, well-built standard page, one that scores well on LCP, INP, and CLS, will rank just as well in mobile search as an equivalent AMP page. Use tools like PageSpeed Insights to measure your current Core Web Vitals scores and identify where to improve. For the fundamentals of ranking factors beyond speed, see the difference between on-page and off-page SEO.

See our 14 expert tips to optimize your mobile marketing.

More to explore

If you think Accelerated Mobile Pages for your website is interesting, wait until you read about AMP for email.

An extension of AMP, AMP for email aims to improve the functionality of emails. The goal is to create more engaging and interactive email experiences. For example, AMP email recipients can directly submit forms from within the inbox.

That's just one example of how you can use AMP for email. Unlike AMP for web pages, AMP for email is not affected by the July 2026 Search delivery change since it runs entirely inside supporting inbox clients like Gmail, not through Google's AMP Cache.

DailyStory has built-in support for AMP emails. We're one of only a handful of email vendors supporting AMP. Other DailyStory features include automation, dynamic audience segmentation and more.

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