AMP for XenForo 2.2

[briansol]

Read only, but it supports links, so just link to the standard advanced reply page....

 

[Ozzy47]

No sitemaps, no newsmaps.

Agreed, that would be unnecessary bloat.

 

[mazzly]

I would also like to have a way to customize the way that the amp page looks in my site. For example to customize the colors regardless of the design of the forum.

I agree, simple main / secondary colors and showing own forums logo on top would be neat.'

This, could be made initially so that you allow some custom css that is inserted at the end of <amp-custom-style> tag and the people who want to use it can override the basic colors etc.

Do you have screenshots of what those errors were?

I can say that they are various markup-problems that AMP validators will complain about also.
One example can be that the <amp-img> is missing height/width
another can be that double <amp-custom-style> tag
Edit: I see that @Andro provided you with a good list already.

Anyway:
I would suggest that for this case you would allow us who are using the plugin to allow "reporting a broken url" with the "amp-validation error" to some place, and then you can look into what might be the problem and how to fix it.
- This way tou can quickly iron out common problems etc.

Question: Can you make a post or reply from a thread with AMP or is it just read only?

I would say that you make it read-only views of forums/threads initially, at the bottom you can place a link "Click here to reply" that goes to the real site.
Think of AMP as a "landing page" that loads fast and brings more traffic (potential users to your forum)

I know AMP has some "logged-in user" features also, but I doubt if the benefit of adding that would be worth the effort.
I wouldn't browse e.g. my own forum in AMP-mode..

Ya, I think you all are overthinking it.

Here's the bare minimum:

• Add "amphtml" meta tag to regular thread pages to point to the ?amp url
• ?amp url needs to show thread data with all javascript stripped out. Essentially a read-only page.
• You will need to translate various bbcode embeds into amp equialvents. YouTube, Instagram, img tags.
• One challenge is you need explicit image dimensions for <img> tags. Height and width. You can't leave those blank, and I don't think xenforo provides those.

No sitemaps, no newsmaps.

This guy said exactly what you will need

Another useful and SEO friendly feature would be implementation of Schema markup on AMP pages the same way XF has implemented on thread view pages. It helps to show your site in a better way on the search results.

This might not be needed, don't quote me on this, but I believe Google and other search engines might be smart enough to be able to pick that up from the HTML-equivalent. Still worth verifying somehow tho.

Initially you should aim to make AMP pages read-only IMO, because the motive behind AMP is loading speed (a search engine ranking factor - of course if your content quality is good enough) which is why Google also recommends it. AMP ain't replacement of full view pages, they are just a bloat free version of original pages with identical UI.

If later on you get requests for posting options through AMP, it's upto you. According to me, AMP should be kept as lightweight as possible for best optimized results.

I agree wholeheartedly

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I think if you start with what @arn wrote you are on a good way to have it solved. For the bb-code handling you can initially make it to just do simple things like <b> <i> etc that are allowed, and place link to youtube/reddit/whatever until you have those solved.

The image dimension might be a problem, as @Mike wrote in the AMP thread.. But maybe they have solved that since 2016?

 

[mazzly]

Also there is a Chrome extension for AMP validation that will tell you if the current page has an AMP-variant, and when clicking it opens the page and tells you if it has AMP-validation errors

 

[mazzly]

As to why I voted yes:

50$ is not a lot for a plugin that adds this basic thing (that is 2-3 years overdue by the XF devs..).

So:

• If you are trying to build a community, you want more people (traffic)
• If you are monetizing your forum, you want more traffic.

If you can get an 27% increase in organic traffic by paying a one time 50$ fee, you are silly not to take the offer, no matter the size of your forum

 

[Aayush]

I would suggest that for this case you would allow us who are using the plugin to allow "reporting a broken url" with the "amp-validation error" to some place, and then you can look into what might be the problem and how to fix it.
- This way tou can quickly iron out common problems etc.

Nice ideas in your entire post. Thanks.


Just for the lolz

 

[l3ta]

Yikes! Fifty quid? I'm going to need more data therapy from @mazzly ;-)

 

[arn]

Here would be my suggestion for img sizes.

Tie into the image proxy system in Xenforo, and require this to be on. Generate and save image height and width into the database as images are already proxied and saved locally.

arn

 

[mazzly]

Tie into the image proxy system in Xenforo, and require this to be on. Generate and save image height and width into the database as images are already proxied and saved locally.

Yes something like that would work.. And for those images where proxy-fetching doesn't work, simply place something like "Image: <open here>" in as text.
- This could also be used as a temporary solution while the image dimensions have not yet been loaded 👍

 

[Aayush]

Here would be my suggestion for img sizes.

Tie into the image proxy system in Xenforo, and require this to be on. Generate and save image height and width into the database as images are already proxied and saved locally.

arn

First load miss, second load always has the right image size. This sounds like a good idea. Thanks for suggesting it.

So, we had this exact problem building ForumApps when we started 4 years back, rendering an image without knowing it's size, I was thinking of using that knowledge to tackle this image problem. Still a lot of unknowns here before I explore AMP, maybe an easier solution is possible on the web but let's see.

In one of the forums I worked on last month, we had this addon by Andy which downloaded and saved all the third-party image to local file system. I doubt that is something that every forum would want to use?

 

[JulianD]

This is a interesting news regarding the AMP project

As Antitrust Pressure Mounts, Google to Pull Back Benefit to News Sites That Adopted Its Preferred Mobile Technology – The Markup

Will the AMP format die as a result?

themarkup.org

 

[Aayush]

“AMP keeps users within Google’s domain and diverts traffic away from other websites for the benefit of Google,” read a 2018 open letter signed by more than 700 technologists and advocates. “At a scale of billions of users, this has the effect of further reinforcing Google’s dominance of the Web.”

This is simply why I don’t like AMP.

Is there still a need for this add on now?

 

[mazzly]

Is there still a need for this add on now?

I still think so.. AMP pages make faster load/better experience for mobile users => higher position in search results (not talking top stories here)

 

[arn]

This is simply why I don’t like AMP.

Is there still a need for this add on now?

If the AMP pages load faster than the non-AMP pages, then yes there is potentially still value.

Forums were never going to rank in the Stories Carousel anyway.

 

[mazzly]

Forums were never going to rank in the Stories Carousel anyway.

yes exactly, some people seem to think this was the reason AMP would be useful, while that is only useful for news sites and not forums

 

[JoyFreak]

yes exactly, some people seem to think this was the reason AMP would be useful, while that is only useful for news sites and not forums

Forums can also have news. I use the built-in 2.1+ article thread types and I'm google news approved. While AMP can be helpful in that sense, it will no longer be required by May 2021 so doesn't really matter for me. The reason why I want to use AMP is because it loads faster on mobile.

 

[arn]

Forums can also have news. I use the built-in 2.1+ article thread types and I'm google news approved. While AMP can be helpful in that sense, it will no longer be required by May 2021 so doesn't really matter for me. The reason why I want to use AMP is because it loads faster on mobile.

AMP news carousel is responsible for like 20% of all of our Google traffic on our non-forum domain.
AMP search results is responsible for 28% of all of our Google traffic on our non-forum domain.

If we turned off amp, search results would be replaced in a good portion by non-amp results.
But the traffic from AMP news carousels -- we would just lose that traffic entirely.

I know Google is going to remove the AMP news carousel requirement, but it remains to be seen how it works after that. If you have a news component, you should have AMP. I'd say even now.

 

[Aayush]

Thanks everyone for sharing insights into AMP. I've also started my own research into the AMP developer docs. It seems that I have some time this weekend to start with a prototype.

 

[Aayush]

@mazzly has built the AMP addon and plans on releasing it soon after he completes testing it on his website.

 

[JoyFreak]

@mazzly has built the AMP addon and plans on releasing it soon after he completes testing it on his website.

Hurry up and release it 😉