Google announced they will start taking punitive action against AMP pages that show teaser or partial content, with a link to see the full content on the main non-AMP page.
Starting on February 1, 2018, AMP pages that are not content parity with their canonical non-AMP page will not be able to rank in the top stories section of Google search. Google said when a webmaster uses this teaser technique, they will redirect the searcher to the non-AMP page and since only AMP pages can show in the top stories carousel, the page will not be able to be shown.
Google also said they will also notify the webmaster in the Google Search console with a manual action message and give the publisher the opportunity to fix the issue before its AMP page can be served again.
The funny thing is just a couple months ago, I reported how NBC News was using this technique and I thought it was somewhat clever. Well, I guess Google is not into the idea of publishers doing this.
Here is a screen shot from Google of what violates the policy where the AMP page doesn't contain the same critical content as its non-AMP equivalent.
Here is the video of NBC News doing it:
Some publishers are strategically using AMP to appear in organic results, and still drive visitors to their own domain. #amp @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/HbBQGxchz2
— Will Jacobsen (@WillieJay22) September 2, 2017
In this case, I am not sure I like this policy. I think the way NBC or even Google's screen shot does it is fair to the searcher and reader. If they are showing totally different content, that is one thing. But to ask the reader to read the full article on the main site that can be monetized better by the publisher - that doesn't seem so unfair to me?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
