AMP: Still Worth It, or Time to Retire It?

22/07/2026

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AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) was Google's answer to slow mobile sites: a stripped-down version of a page, served from Google's cache, opening almost instantly. For years, carrying the AMP badge was a requirement for the Top Stories carousel — so publishers adopted it en masse, willingly or not. But things have changed.

What changed

The key date is June 2021: with the Page Experience update, Google dropped AMP as a requirement for Top Stories. Since then, any page that meets Core Web Vitals can appear in the carousel. Google also removed the AMP badge from search results. In other words — the privilege AMP existed for is gone.

The real-world trend is just as clear: many major sites have shut AMP down (Twitter stopped redirecting to AMP versions back in 2021), and new AMP adoption has been declining for years.

The case against AMP today

Double the work: you maintain two versions of every page — every design, ad, or analytics change is done twice, and AMP versions tend to drift away from the main site.
Restrictions: AMP only allows its own components. Custom forms, interactive elements, many marketing tools — all either impossible or painful.
Analytics and revenue: AMP pages have historically shown lower ad revenue and harder conversion tracking, because they are served from Google's cache instead of your domain.
No SEO bonus anymore: speed is a ranking factor, but AMP as a technology is not. Google ranks fast pages, not AMP pages.

When AMP can still make sense

To be fair, there are scenarios where AMP still earns its keep: large news publishers with huge mobile traffic who already run stable AMP infrastructure and do not want the cost of unwinding it, and AMP for Email, which is a separate story living its own life in interactive emails. If you are in that group and everything works — no need to panic.

What to do instead of AMP

AMP's goal was speed, and today you can get there without it:

Pass Core Web Vitals: LCP under 2.5 s, INP under 200 ms, CLS under 0.1.
Optimize images (WebP/AVIF, lazy loading) and cut unnecessary scripts.
Use caching and a CDN so content is served close to the visitor.
Choose hosting with fast response times — NVMe storage and low TTFB are half the result.

That is exactly why our hosting plans include NVMe storage, a global CDN, and caching at no extra cost — one fast site instead of two half-maintained ones. If rankings are your priority, have a look at our SEO hosting.

How to retire AMP safely

Set up 301 redirects from all AMP URLs to the regular page versions.
Remove the amphtml link tags from your page headers.
Watch Search Console for a few weeks — no drop is expected if redirects are correct.

Bottom line: for the vast majority of sites, AMP in 2026 is a technology whose time has passed. A fast, well-optimized site on quality hosting delivers the same SEO result — without maintaining everything twice.