The AMP project is an open source initiative backed by Google, with the goal of making websites faster. Here’s what it is, in sixty seconds!

AMP in Brief

From a developer perspective, leveraging AMP means you’ll use some boilerplate code, load some AMPJavaScript, use some custom AMP elements, and follow best practice rules so you can pass AMP validation.

Behind the scenes, AMP will handle optimization techniques, like “lazy loading”, prerendering, preconnecting, and prefetching. These are all techniques you can handle yourself manually if you prefer, but AMP will do them for you hands-free.

Valid AMP pages will also automatically cache themselves in the AMP CDN without charge. AMP provides access to multiple ad networks through the AMP ad element. This means that sites which need to monetize effectively can still optimize efficiently too.

AMP may be for you if you want to optimize load speed, but you don’t want to do it manually. Or, if you need a method that doesn’t interrupt ad revenue.