AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages): is it still worth it?

Short answer: no, for most B2B sites Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is no longer necessary. It was a Google project designed to make mobile pages load lightning fast, but ever since Google dropped the AMP requirement for Top Stories in 2021 and removed the AMP badge from search results, most of the point has gone. With Core Web Vitals you can hit the same speed on your own site today, without the downsides. In this article you’ll read what AMP was, why it became obsolete, and where your time is better spent.

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What is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)?

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, an open-source project Google launched to make web pages load faster on mobile. The trick: AMP strips a page back to the bare essentials and keeps a cached version on Google’s servers, so the content appears almost instantly.

To achieve that, the more complex elements are sacrificed: heavy scripts, animations and ads. You work with a slimmed-down version of CSS and you’re only allowed to use AMP’s own JavaScript library. The result loads at blistering speed, but you hand over a lot of control. And note: technically the page runs on Google, not on your own domain. Visitors therefore never touch your real site.

When AMP appeared in search results in February 2016, it was a hype. Big names such as Twitter jumped on board and some experts called it the future of marketing. AMP pages got a lightning bolt icon in the search results, signalling that they would load super fast.

Why is AMP largely obsolete?

The wind has turned. In 2021 Google quietly removed the lightning bolt icon from the search results, as Google itself confirmed. More importantly: Google scrapped the AMP requirement for the Top Stories carousel. In the past, your news article had to be in AMP to appear in that coveted news carousel. That condition is gone.

At the same time, Google introduced Core Web Vitals: a set of measurable speed and stability signals that apply to every regular page. That removed the last real argument for AMP. Today you can reach exactly the same load speed on your normal site, without giving your content away.

To be clear: AMP is not technically dead and you can still implement it. But it is not a ranking factor (it never was), it is no longer a requirement for Top Stories, and the visible badge advantage has disappeared. For a B2B company that isn’t a webshop and doesn’t live off news articles, there is simply little reason left to go down that road.

What are the downsides of AMP for B2B?

This is where it really pinches. AMP strips out precisely the elements that weigh heaviest for you as a B2B company:

• It removes your lead forms. AMP strips out forms and downloadable assets by default. For a site built around capturing leads, that’s a big problem. It hits your conversion rate directly.
• Less control over branding and design. AMP throws away a lot of “superfluous” elements, but that’s exactly where your brand look and your internal click-throughs live.
• Limited analytics. Because the page sits on Google’s servers, you can’t use standard analytics tags the way you can on your own site. So you lose sight of what visitors do, while measurement is precisely the basis for increasing conversions.
• Your content lives at Google, not with you. Visitors land on a cached version and never touch your real website. That gives Google more grip on your presence than many business owners want.

There are cases that show how painful this can be. A widely cited case from hosting company Kinsta found that AMP cut the number of leads by up to 59 percent. For a B2B site, that isn’t a side detail, that’s your entire business model.

The irony: the whole point of AMP is speed, yet there are plenty of ways to make your site fast without all these sacrifices. And that brings us to the honest advice.

What do you do instead of AMP?

Don’t put your time into AMP. Optimise your regular site. That’s not a half measure, it has simply become the better choice. Concretely:

1. Work on your Core Web Vitals. Lighter images, fewer heavy scripts and fixed dimensions to prevent layout shifts. That gets you the same mobile speed AMP promised, on your own domain. Read how in our guide to Core Web Vitals.
2. Build mobile first. More than half of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. A page that works fast and pleasantly on a phone always wins. Start with your most important landing page.
3. Test and measure for real. With your content on your own site, you can simply run A/B tests and track your conversions. Look at what counts: completed forms, enquiries and revenue, not a speed score in itself.

A well-built, fast site does everything AMP promised while keeping your forms, your branding and your data in-house. If you want that foundation laid properly, professional web design is the place to start. And if you then want to steer even more sharply on results, our approach to optimising mobile landing pages takes you further.

At CustomerImpact we deliberately flip it around: we don’t steer on vanity speed numbers, but on customers, leads and revenue. Speed is a means, not a goal. As a small team, we therefore choose what demonstrably delivers conversions, and today that’s a strong regular site, not AMP.

Frequently asked questions about AMP

Is AMP still needed in 2026? For most sites, no. Google dropped the AMP requirement for Top Stories and removed the AMP badge. Unless you publish a great deal of breaking news, it’s no longer worth the effort.

Is AMP good for SEO? AMP is not a ranking factor and never has been. Speed does count, but you get that just as well with Core Web Vitals on your regular pages. AMP is not an SEO best practice.

What is the difference between AMP and Core Web Vitals? AMP is a separate, slimmed-down page format that runs on Google’s servers. Core Web Vitals are measurable performance signals that apply to your regular site. With Core Web Vitals you get the speed without losing control.

Is AMP costing me leads? It can. AMP strips out lead forms and downloads, and a well-known case reported up to 59 percent fewer leads. For B2B, that’s a serious risk.

Should I remove my existing AMP pages? Not headlong, but if they get in the way of your conversion or measurement, winding them down in favour of a fast regular site is usually the better move. Test the effect before you decide.

Ready to make your site genuinely faster and stronger?

AMP has become a detour. The speed you’re after lies in a well-built, mobile-friendly site that is steered by leads instead of scores. Want to know where the gains are for your site?

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