Why the bounce rate of AMP pages is so high

They finally added a way to easily get the original URL (click the link button in the AMP header). Not ideal, but better than trying to get it out of the address bar.

I don't think Google has the usability of this correct. I don't like how awkard it feels to truly get to the article on the website and the URL. Having said that, I'm enjoying the speed and readability.

Is this opt-in for the publishers?

How different is this from from browser's blocking pop ups?

I prefer not to using a pop up blocker, so I experience the web like the general population. But I was so sick of publishers forcing ad clicks on mobile by effectively blocking scrolling on smaller form factor devices like my iPhone SE, that I've switched to the Brave browser.

1. Lots of users care. Watch any senior citizen on a mediocre PC surf the internet for twenty minutes.

2. Google did and still does. Load times were still unacceptable across the board, usually not because they had to be but often times because the people running the websites don't care enough to. Same as for HTTPS.

3. AMP is a more drastic reaction. It appears to be working.

That being said, I would like to see AMP become enacted only on sites that do actually take a long while to load. At the same time, AMP is still opt in. This isn't forced altruism, but you can play nicely or be lowered in rankings in response.

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In general, users do make their choice. Product designers counter by making it more difficult to leave or get content.

I'm a firmly bitter user who has stopped frequenting a lot of websites because they don't load well or don't give me what I consider to be an acceptable value prop (I'll happily turn off my adblocker if your ads are well behaved, I won't take a survey to read a one paragraph article).

But most users, and especially most non-technical users, aren't willing to take that same stance despite being very frustrated. It seems to vary between "well that's just how the internet is" to "I don't know any other sources". Having google prioritize non-terrible sources is a big boon to those non-technical users in my eyes, cemented firmly when I watch my mom or other older family members try to search the internet.

Serious answer: companies use aggressive and abusive tactics because they work.

Why? Because users aren't power users. Most don't know better.

So I'm supposed to keep a mental database of all the sites I might visit, and whether their ads, pushy JS popups, autoplay videos, and other crap are too heavy for my taste? And consult that database every time I see an interesting-sounding headline on facebook or twitter or my news app, before I click on the link? If it's a site I've never visited, how do I even know whether the UX will be acceptable to me before I click?

I admit I do keep track of a handful of bad offenders in my head, but I really shouldn't have to do that. Sure, it would be better if there was a trusted decentralized system to enforce rules and guarantee a decent UX, perhaps with more granularity so people could set different acceptable points, but until that exists, of course I'm going to use the presence of an instant articles or AMP icon to guide my browsing.

I do.

If a site obstructs the content in any way, or starts playing sound and I didn't expect it (for example video sites may be acceptable) I hit back immiedately.

I don't expect most users behave in this way.

Most people don't give a shit. Plenty of my friends don't block ads. They don't care enough to care about anything "technical." Kind of like how my dad refuses to learn how to upload documents in an email. So we might make decisions and change our behavior, but I can assure you that the masses just go with the flow and probably don't care. It's why people shop at Walmart and don't change their privacy settings. They don't care enough to do differently, or sometimes it's not feasible. It takes a while to lock down your Facebook properly, and even then, they still collect so much data on you. Pretty much everyone I know wouldn't care to hear about the NSA, security, Facebook, etc. None of it matters. This is a pretty poorly worded and incoherent post, but my point is that many people don't even know what could be better. They don't realize the flaws in websites or companies or government programs, and they don't want to think about it. At least that's been my experience.

> heavily lower the ranking (or completely remove from their index) any sites that don't meet basic performance and readability thresholds.

This seems like a much tougher problem than AMP.

From an API design standpoint, it is much easier to build and maintain an endpoint that receives data that must be in a specific, proprietary data format instead of an endpoint that allows the user to input data in any format and then attempts to parse that data after receiving it.

For the people using their product, yes. If you're using Google, you implicitly trust their result ranking and presentation (else you wouldn't be using Google.)

What is the problem here?

We added that button to Google Search on the web about a month ago.

I also really wish there was a useful way to turn AMP off - it very much interferes with my browsing habits.

I find messing with the user agent (mobile firefox plugin "phony" lets you pose as lynx, for example!) can be effective, and also I saw on a google products discussion page that using the url https://news.google.com/news/i#0 returns non-AMP results.

Why it can't just be a user option to disable it, I've no idea.

Is it possible that AMP pages are preferred because they're a better user experience?

You find it terrible, perhaps, but users seem to love it.

Yeah, I realize that now, just saying that this did not match what I understood what AMP should be, when it was released. I don't think it was obvious that "users will stay on google's site" was the clear point of it.

By now I read all the horror stories, have a better picture of what it technically actually is, and opted not to support it for my sites.

Bounce rate was just used as an example. I agree that it can be meaningless depending on the type of website.

The problem is not about bounce rate, is about cookies and the inability of tracking users correctly. Give it another read ;)

I too, am many people on the internet, yet singular in the physical.