Coming Back for Another Go

Hmmm, there’s something else not quite right, and it’s to do with Google SERPS.

After activating the AMP plugin, I also changed the site and meta description through Yoast, and requested re-indexing for the homepage.

This was done just before I wrote the previous support topic, at around 5.30pm British time.

Having just checked on the SERPS, I found that my OLD site title and meta description were still showing, when I know for a fact that when re-indexed and submitted, the new descriptions are visible almost immediately.

So I deactivated AMP, and resubmitted again through Google search console, and the site title and meta description did indeed update within 5 minutes.

AMP remains deactivated until a solution is found for this far from elementary problem.

@steveraven The “Call to” plugin you are using most likely uses custom JavaScript, so it won’t work in AMP by default. You can reach out to the developer of that plugin and ask about AMP support.

In relation to the next and previous navigation buttons you can implement your own navigation buttons by creating your own template. To do so follow the steps below:
1. Create a folder called amp in your active themes directory
2. In that folder create a file called post-pagination.php
3. Add the following code into that file:
<?php the_post_navigation(); ?>

3. In your active themes functions.php file add the following:

add_filter( 'amp_post_article_footer_meta', function( $parts ) {
	array_unshift( $parts, 'post-pagination' );
	return $parts;
} );

If you want to keep visitors to your AMP URLs within AMP (such as when they click on any internal links) you can use this plugin. Download it and install as you would via uploading any other WordPress plugin.

In relation to your meta information in Search Console there is an extension to Yoast you can use (Glue for Yoast) for your AMP URLs. Having said that the meta description in your Yoast does not always not reflect the meta description used by search engines. As an example you can find out more on how Google determines the meta information here, or on the Yoast website here.

Thanks for the info on the first two problems, but the Google Search Console advice is a little wide of the mark.

As previously mentioned, my homepage (the main ranking page) was submitted for a re-index with new page title and meta description, and this was done with NO Amp significance whatsoever, I just fancied a little change.

As also mentioned above, I was only using the ‘reader’ mode, which means that the homepage and all other pages were completely untouched by the amp plugin.

So how did the homepage site title and meta description remain unchanged for 5 hours after altering it, and only change when resubmitted again with the AMP plugin deactivated?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by steveraven.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by steveraven.

@steveraven Having the AMP plugin activated does not impact your canonical site title or meta description. It could be an issue with Search Console, you might find more relevant information by submitting a topic on the Search Console support forum.

ALSO:

…and this is a bit of a biggie –

On checking my website source code for my Google Analytics tracking code, I found that that the analytics id had disappeared.

On disabling AMP the analytics id was again there.

So from this, we can deduce that in it’s present state, AMP is not compatible with Google Search Console OR Google Analytics, and with the greatest of respect, I don’t feel that submitting a topic on the support console forum would do anything really – except for some bright spark saying ‘it’s not Googles fault, tell them that the AMP plugin needs sorting out’.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by steveraven.

@steveraven Having the AMP plugin active does not impact your analytics tracking on your non AMP site.

If you have implementing Analytics via the traditional JavaScript code snippet then it will be stripped out in AMP pages only (as custom JavaScript is not supported by default in AMP).

The plugin provides an analytics tab to enable tracking from various vendors, including Google Analytics. You can also use a plugin such as Site Kit which will place Analytics tracking for both your AMP and non AMP URLs.

I’m sorry, but from my experience it DOES affect analytics tracking and search console snippets, so we’ll have to agree to differ on that one.

Just a quick point here – has the ‘reader’ option been road tested on a fully working website?

You keep saying that non-AMP pages will not be affected, but on viewing the website homepage (a non-AMP page) source code there were tons of new tags, presumably from the AMP plugin (can’t think where else they came from) that all disappeared upon deactivation.

I’d probably set up a live test website with AMP installed using ‘reader’ mode, a static homepage, an installation of Yoast, and a few posts to see what I mean as regards the site-title, meta descriptions and Google Analytics.

Note that I’m not asking for anything out of the ordinary here, as I’m guessing that’s how most WordPress websites are set up.

Also, check the source code before, and after the installation of AMP, to see just how many extra codes are added to the non-amp pages!

Finally, just running through this support thread, THREE new plugins have been suggested to ‘compliment’ AMP and make it work properly, plus a couple of code snippets to make the navigation work correctly.

Makes you think that this is really a ‘beta’ project at the moment.

Just a quick point here – has the ‘reader’ option been road tested on a fully working website?

Yes. The Reader mode has been around for many years now and is successfully used by thousands of websites without issues. Even though we highly recommend Transitional or Standard mode for a better user experience, we are always looking for ways to further improve Reader mode as well.

You keep saying that non-AMP pages will not be affected, but on viewing the website homepage (a non-AMP page) source code there were tons of new tags, presumably from the AMP plugin (can’t think where else they came from) that all disappeared upon deactivation.

It would really help if you could share the code or ideally the URL (could be a staging site) with us.

The only code the AMP plugin does really output on non-AMP pages is the meta tag to the AMP version (<link rel="amphtml" href="https://www.example.com/url/to/amp/document.html">).