Problems: plugin AMPs an unwanted page, Google won’t de-AMP it

  • Hey there,

    I am working on a client’s website that uses this plugin. Only the blog pages were AMPed. However, when the plugin was updated, the client’s main service pages had AMP turned on — and without anyone’s input or approval.

    The client had to turn off the plugin, as AMP was killing conversions on those pages. The simplified layout removed his business phone number — so that would take someone 2 more clicks before someone can call the business and make an inquiry.

    The client 301-redirected the AMP URL to the non-AMP URL. I have attempted numerous times to resubmit both URLs in Google Search Console so the page would re-index as non-AMP. Google has not de-AMPed the page in the mobile index in 2 weeks.

    While I know Google does things on a queue basis, I’ve never seen their crawlers so stubborn to de-AMP a page, despite it being physically removed from the website.

    1. What update would cause unwanted pages to be AMPed involuntarily? Obviously, there is a problem with your plugin.
    2. How do I make absolutely certain an indexed AMP page is replaced with non-AMP, with all the steps completed (and all evidence of the AMP is Already Physically Removed from the HTML per Google guidelines — YES, that means the <link rel="amphtml"> code is NOT THERE IN THE HTML SOURCE ANYMORE)?

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Plugin Author Weston Ruter

    (@westonruter)

    1. What update would cause unwanted pages to be AMPed involuntarily? Obviously, there is a problem with your plugin.

    Originally the AMP plugin only had the Post content type enabled by default. As of 2.0 this was expanded to include Page content type. Nevertheless, when upgrading from 1.x to 2.0, it should have maintained only Posts as being the enabled content type. Enabling the Page content type should have only applied to new installs. However, it appears that this is not the case. I just tested this and Pages were enabled when upgrading from a fresh 1.5 install. Sorry for the trouble. We’ll investigate and try to fix in the next patch version, though I know this doesn’t help your situation.

    2. How do I make absolutely certain an indexed AMP page is replaced with non-AMP

    While you haven’t provided your site’s URL for us to check, the absence of any such amphtml links should indeed eliminate AMP from being offered for such pages. Submitting those URLs to be re-indexed by Google Search would be the best advice I have as well.

    Thread Starter tva36012

    (@tva36012)

    1. I just tested this and Pages were enabled when upgrading from a fresh 1.5 install. Sorry for the trouble. We’ll investigate and try to fix in the next patch version, though I know this doesn’t help your situation.

    That’s OK – thank you for confirming the bug. Really appreciate it.

    2. While you haven’t provided your site’s URL for us to check, the absence of any such amphtml links should indeed eliminate AMP from being offered for such pages. Submitting those URLs to be re-indexed by Google Search would be the best advice I have as well.

    I thought so. Google seems to be unusually stubborn, as I’ve submitted the URLs 3-4 times over the past few weeks, and they’ve done nothing to re-index the page. What’s your advice to expedite it?

    Plugin Author Weston Ruter

    (@westonruter)

    That’s OK – thank you for confirming the bug. Really appreciate it.

    I’ve opened a pull request that fixes the issue: https://github.com/ampproject/amp-wp/pull/5413

    I thought so. Google seems to be unusually stubborn, as I’ve submitted the URLs 3-4 times over the past few weeks, and they’ve done nothing to re-index the page. What’s your advice to expedite it?

    Have you followed the guide to Remove AMP content from Google Search?

    One step mentioned in that guide, which isn’t so straightforward, is to use Google’s update-cache API: https://developers.google.com/amp/cache/update-cache

    Nevertheless, there are also reported issues with this API as well: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/24326

    Another idea would be to add the AMP page URLs to the robots.txt.

    Did you request re-crawling the canonical URLs or what the AMP pages were? Maybe if you try asking Google to re-crawl what the AMP URL was, it will pick up that it is now 404ing and stop offering it. Sorry I don’t have more definitive information. I don’t work in search relations.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Weston Ruter.
    Thread Starter tva36012

    (@tva36012)

    This little snafu continues to cost my client a lot of money in lost business. It’s affecting a page for the main city where he gets services. He hasn’t gotten any calls for service in over 2 weeks, shortly after he updated. When the update enacted AMP in error on pages, all calls to action and clickable phone numbers were removed from the mobile page.

    I have submitted 4 Google recrawl requests for the canonical URL, and several for the AMP URL, and Google is stubborn – it won’t de-AMP the page in the search index at all. In fact, I have heard first-hand that Google is taking up to 40 days to de-AMP a page in its index that no longer physically has AMP code on it, and that has followed all the Google steps to remove AMP content.

    I’d really appreciate your help for a resolution ASAP.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by tva36012.
    • This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by tva36012.
    Plugin Author Weston Ruter

    (@westonruter)

    Did you follow all of the guidance documented at Remove AMP content from Google Search?

    Please I have the same issue

    In my case the URLs appear something like this

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/medarchivemagazine.com/3rd-mbbs-exam-in-nigeria/%3famp_markup=1

    As google AMP with the markup at the end of the link

    I have removed the amp plugin, redirected my contents, but the worst part is that even after I publish a new post, it is still served as Google AMP on Google search and on Twitter.

    I have tried accessing my htaccess file to add the redirect AMP code, but didnt work.

    I followed the guide provided by Google on how to remove AMP pages, but I don’t understand what they mean by clearing Google cache , because I have cleared my browser cache many times and nothing has happened.

    Please guys, is there no way to fix this?

    Plugin Author Weston Ruter

    (@westonruter)

    @leenick You do not appear to be using the official AMP plugin. Perhaps you are using Instant Articles for WP?

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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