AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages is a Google-backed project that was created as an open standard for publishers to have their pages load quickly when being viewed on mobile devices, and was introduced in 2015. In early 2016, Google integrated AMP listings into mobile search results.
Google decided recently to no longer require AMP in the Top Stories carousel. After this news came to light, there were publishers that decided they weren’t going to be utilizing AMP anymore, but this could be bad news for them. Despite the fact it may not be mandatory to utilize AMP for inclusion in the Top Stories carousel, AMP do still perform a lot better than non-AMP pages regarding ranking and revenue.
Giving up using AMP might be a choice a publisher decides to take, but that doesn’t always make it a good idea. There is so much data available that shows that keeping AMP is the best route for publishers.
Check out Search Engine Land’s post to see the data and why keeping AMP around here!