Alex Kras:
I initially enabled AMP on my site for one reason only – ranking well in Google search results.
Shortly before AMP became a thing, Google announced that they will begin penalizing websites that did not render fast on mobile devices. My website had a responsive theme, but I wasn’t sure if that was “mobile friendly” enough. Therefore, when I learned that WordPress had an AMP plugin, I quickly enabled it. Even though Google has officially stated that AMP support does not affect site’s search ranking, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
Another search ranking benefit of AMP, is that only AMP enabled sites are shown in Google’s carousel feature. While my site is not likely to make it into the carousel, getting featured there must be very important for big publishers.
I understand why at first glance AMP seems like a good deal to both big publishers and independent authors. People like websites that load quickly and Google makes this difficult task easy with AMP. The tradeoffs are huge though and how it’s currently implemented is heavily skewed towards Google’s favor. If you have AMP or are thinking about using it, read this article first.
https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site/