Amp plugins + Wordpress = speed, rankings, results

[vmialik]

Hello beloved,

Been some time since I have  been on, planning to return and help out and be bit more active.

Need some latest thoughts and input, on amp plugins for Wordpress, and their results and effect on rankings?

Thank you all in advance

[jasongmcmahon]

This was tried at my Agency a few months ago, it was a waste of time, in my opinion, unless you're running a News service.

I'd focus on optimising your site & upgrade your hosting solution.

[effectdigital]

I second this but also add that optimising your critical rendering path (which to be done properly CAN NOT BE HANDED to junior developers, senior only!!!) can have some incredible results:

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/critical-rendering-path/analyzing-crp

https://kinsta.com/blog/critical-rendering-path/

It's extremely difficult and involves inlining some CSS / JS, putting the rest in another file and deferring that file (as well as a few other bits and pieces). The trick is getting the CSS / JS inline / external groupings set up correctly as otherwise, the site loads up a bit glitchy

This is extremely advanced, tiresome and not for the faint of heart. Only champions of dev need apply

[vmialik]

Thanks Joe,

Anyone have experience for extended length blog articles that took advantage of amp functionality?And saw rank boost? This is the info I am looking for.

Thanks all

[vmialik]

Effectdigital,

Critical Path optimization is just one part of a bigger amp pie including:

1. Allow only asynchronous scripts
2. Size all resources statically
3. Don't let extension mechanisms block rendering
4. Keep all third-party JavaScript out of the critical path
5. All CSS must be inline and size-bound
6. Font triggering must be efficient
7. Minimize style recalculations
8. Only run GPU-accelerated animations
9. Prioritize resource loading
10. And More

So amp process covers a lot, and agreed top devs is ideal, but in WordPress world there are plugins that successfully cover 90% of what a solid dev would do in a custom project, and for many cases a plugin is more then enough so looking for more input, of any that had success. Again thank you for the current response this is helpful.

[effectdigital]

Never found any plugin that does critical CSS and critical JS properly for all variants of a site's responsive design. Maybe a lot of things do get covered by some plugins, but it ends up looking glitchy with bits of the page jumping around on-load (which is technically a failed critical rendering path optimisation implementation!)

There are loads of good plugins that help with the caching, minification, compression and deferring of resources (Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, Autoptimize etc) but still for the critical rendering path optimisation elements - nothing that I would call 'solid' or 'good'

Still I haven't personally built a WP site in a year or two now. Maybe you could point me to a plugin that actually correctly generates critical CSS and critical JS in a dynamic way where it's altered depending upon the user's device (mobile vs desktop etc)

As for AMP, never had much luck with it myself. Like Joe said I don't think it's really very worth it

[Sernukers]

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