Launched in 2016 as a way to lower page load times decrease data usage, Google’s open-source project, AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), has been the target of criticism for allegedly “keeping users within Google’s domain and diverting traffic away from other websites for the benefit of Google.”
Google has continuously denied this claim. In an attempt to prove its motives are well-intentioned, it recently launched an advisory committee to “Encourage a wider variety of voices at all levels of contribution, including code contributions, setting the future direction of AMP and deciding which features and bug fixes should be worked on.”
TPG’s Léonie Watson, along with other members of the web community from eBay, AliExpress, and Automattic (among others), will form the new Advisory Committee. Since AMP pages are already given an automatic boost in Google rankings, including Léonie could further indicate that Google is considering accessible web pages as a positive ranking factor. Only time will tell.
Congratulations to Léonie!