Reference guide · technical-seo · Published 2026-08-16 · 3 min read
The status of AMP for Google search
AMP is no longer a ranking factor or required for Top Stories since 2021, and here is what that means for existing AMP pages.
- ·What changed
- ·It is not a boost
- ·Existing AMP pages
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) was introduced in 2016 as a restricted framework that Google could cache and show. For a time it was required for the Top Stories carousel and carried a visible AMP badge. That is no longer true, and for a modern site AMP is at best neutral and usually an extra liability.
What changed in 2021
In June 2021 Google rolled out the page experience update and made a set of specific changes that ended AMP's special position:
- The Top Stories carousel on mobile became open to any page that meets the Google News content policies, regardless of technology. AMP is no longer required there.
- Google removed the AMP badge from search results.
- Google News expanded beyond AMP-only pages.
The driving idea was that page performance itself, measured by Core Web Vitals, should determine the experience bonus rather than a fixed framework. Fast, standards-based pages earn the same treatment AMP once gated.
It is not a ranking boost
Google has stated AMP is not a ranking factor. There is no ranking credit for serving an AMP version of a page. The performance benefits that once motivated AMP, faster loading and better Core Web Vitals, are achievable with a normal well-built page. Legion old advice about "AMP helps you rank in Top Stories" describes a requirement that has since been removed.
What existing AMP pages should do
If your site has no AMP pages, do not add them to chase a ranking benefit; none exists.
If you already run AMP pages:
- Confirm there is no residual benefit to keeping the duplicate AMP version, since the non-AMP page is now eligible for the same features.
- Redirect the AMP variant URLs to the canonical non-AMP page with a 301 so the crawl and link equity consolidate.
- Verify the canonical tag on the AMP page points to the standard page before redirecting, and clean up any cached AMP URL legacy in Search Console.
- Move the performance effort to the real page: the Core Web Vitals guide and the mobile-first indexing checklist cover what actually earns the ranking treatment now.
The performance framing that replaced it
Instead of serving a restricted parallel format, modern practice optimises the standard page for the metrics Google measures. A responsive page that passes the Core Web Vitals thresholds gets the performance treatment without AMP's constraints on JavaScript and CSS. If you are consolidating an AMP setup while also changing hosts, treat the redirect map carefully, covered in the redirect map migration guide.