Differences Between Accelerated Mobile Pages and Progressive Web Apps

Category: seo Posted on 18-05-2023

If you are a web developer or a website owner, you might have heard of AMP and PWA. These two technologies aim to improve web pages’ performance and user experience, especially on mobile devices. But what are they exactly, and how do they differ?

In this article, we will explain what AMP and PWA are, how they work, and their main advantages and disadvantages. We will also provide some tips on choosing between them depending on your goals and needs.

What are AMP and PWA?

Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, is an open-source framework that enables you to create fast-loading web pages using less data. In a world where a one-second delay could determine whether you convert or lose a customer, it’s easy to see why AMP became necessary.

You could easily tell the speed difference between AMP and regular web pages by using the Eye10 Pagespeed checker to analyze each URL.

AMP pages use a limited set of HTML and CSS components optimized for performance and follow certain guidelines and best practices. AMP pages may also leverage the AMP cache, a content delivery network that serves cached versions of AMP pages from Google’s servers.

From a purely functional perspective, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) aren’t so different from AMP pages since PWAs were also designed with a fast web experience in mind.

The difference is that PWAs use modern web technologies to deliver a native app-like experience to users. They transform HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into native apps, with capabilities such as notifications and access to device features such as camera, geolocation, etc.

These days, with the ubiquity of apps, PWAs help small businesses to provide services easily. They also help customers since they are designed to work offline or even on low-quality networks.

How do AMP and PWA differ from each other?

AMP and PWA have different goals and features. Here are some of the main differences between them:

While both types of experiences could be accessed on low-quality networks, compared with regular websites and apps, PWAs differ in being accessible even offline.
AMP pages are easily discoverable in search results because they are pre-rendered and cached by Google, ensuring instant loading. This contributes to your SEO ranking, as can be measured using the Eye10 Rank Checker tool. On the other hand, until a user installs a PWA, the page works like a regular website, and they can’t enjoy instant loading features or access it offline.

PWAs offer more interactive and dynamic content, such as animations, transitions, forms, etc., enhancing user experience. However, AMP is more suitable for static content like news articles or product listings.

Benefits of Accelerated Mobile Pages

AMP pages have immense benefits, especially when compared with regular web pages. In summary, AMP pages:

Enhance the web browsing experience of mobile users in particular.
They are excellent for attracting traffic from mobile users and enhancing your mobile SEO results.
They are featured on Google search results and can be identified using a lightning bolt icon. Google prioritizes these pages by featuring them in the carousel of top stories. This leads to a higher click-through rate.
AMP pages are designed to strip web pages or unnecessary content and other functionality so that the app displays essential content only and quickly.
If your web page is content-heavy, AMP pages would be really helpful for displaying your content to users in a streamlined format.

Benefits of Progressive Web Apps

PWA can improve a website’s user experience, retention, conversion, and revenue. To highlight some of their benefits, Progressive Web Apps:

Mimic the look and feel of a native app, creating a more immersive and consistent user experience across different devices and platforms.
Are quick and easy to install by tapping on the ‘add to home screen’ prompt or button from the browser. Users don’t have to visit an app store or download a large file.
It can be used offline. Hence, being cut off from internet access anytime only poses minimal disruptions.
Work on any browser and device that supports modern web standards. Compatibility is not an issue.
Help users stay informed and engaged via push notifications. This increases their loyalty and retention rate for your brand or business.
Eliminate the cost of developing a native app for different platforms and devices from the ground up.

How to Choose Between AMP and PWA?

There is no definitive answer to whether you should choose AMP or PWA for your website. It depends on your goals, needs, audience, budget, and preferences. However, here are some general guidelines that can help you make an informed decision:

Choose AMP:	Choose PWA:
Suppose your primary goal is to improve your website’s personality and visibility on search engines. PWAs also contribute to SEO but only indirectly. However, AMP pages contribute directly to SEO traffic.	To provide your users with a native app-like experience that works offline, on any device and browser, and offers features such as push notifications, home screen installation, etc.
Suppose your pages are static content that does not require much user interaction. Platforms that fall in this category are newspapers, online magazines, blogs, etc.	If you prioritize user interactions and feedback or want your users to have an immersive experience, use PWAs. E-commerce websites and social media platforms prefer PWAs.
Suppose you don’t require access to any device features for your website to be fully functional. The focus is on only presenting essential content.	Suppose the functionality of your website requires access to devise features such as GPS, camera, contacts list, etc. PWAs are the best for this.

Despite these, you should consider choosing both if you want to combine the best of both worlds and leverage the strengths of each technology.

You can use AMP as a starting point for your PWA, as AMP pages can be easily converted into PWA pages with some additional code. This way, you can benefit from AMP’s speed and discoverability on the first click and PWA’s interactivity and functionality on subsequent visits.

Either way, you must ensure that your on-page SEO is free from any issues that impede your traffic generation. To ensure that, use the Eye10 On-Page SEO tool.

Conclusion

AMP and PWA are powerful technologies that can help you improve your website’s performance and user experience. Depending on your situation, you may choose one or the other. It is important to understand what each technology can do for you and how it can help you achieve your objectives.

Understanding how SEO tools like the Eye10 suite can help you achieve your objectives is important. For $3 only, you enjoy a free trial across all Eye10 SEO products. Sign up today.

FAQ

Are AMP pages and PWAs difficult to develop?

AMP pages are much easier to develop than PWAs. This is because, for the former, you are not adding anything new. Instead, Google is stripping your web page of non-essential elements. However, for PWAs, you must build a native-like app experience into the code. This comes with some more technical responsibility. However, it is much cheaper and easier than building a full-fledged mobile app.

Are there any security concerns with using AMP and PWAs?

Both AMP and PWAs are designed with security in mind, and measures are in place to ensure they are safe to use, including open standards. However, as with any web technology, there is always a risk of security vulnerabilities, so it's important to follow best practices for web security and keep your software resources up-to-date.

Which one should I use for my mobile website?

The right answer depends on your goals and priorities for your website. AMP may be the better option if your main goal is to provide a fast and responsive mobile experience. However, a PWA would be perfect if you want to provide a more app-like experience with offline capabilities and push notifications.

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