Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source HTML framework built to make mobile pages load almost instantly by cutting them to a lightweight subset of HTML, streamlined CSS, and pages served from a cache. Google championed it heavily in the late 2010s, and its importance has since faded.
AMP restricted the code a page could use, banning custom JavaScript and limiting CSS, and let pages be pre-cached and served from Google's own servers. The payoff was speed, with AMP pages often rendering in under a second. The trade-off was reduced design flexibility and a stripped-down experience.
Two shifts undercut it. In 2021 Google dropped the AMP requirement for the Top Stories carousel, removing the main reason publishers maintained it. Around the same time, Core Web Vitals became how Google measures page experience, and you can hit those thresholds on a normal, well-built page without AMP. By 2026, most publishers have retired their AMP versions.
For most sites, no. Invest instead in a fast, responsive site that passes Core Web Vitals. Approaches like progressive web apps deliver quick mobile experiences without AMP's constraints. AMP still exists and a few large publishers keep it, but it is no longer a ranking advantage. A technical SEO review can confirm whether any legacy AMP pages are worth keeping.