> my goal is that even this should not need to exist: websites that genuinely load fast on their own, comparable to downloading the webpackage, should be ranked as high as AMP websites.
My understanding is this is also Malte's goal, and the goal of the Google Search folks. We need a way that Search can know that a website (a) will perform well and (b) can be preloaded in a privacy preserving manner. Right now only AMP can do this, but with Web Packages people will be able to do this without AMP. Once you can get (a) and (b) without AMP I will be super surprised if Search still prioritizes AMP.
(Disclosure: I work at Google, on making ads AMP so they don't get to run any custom JS. Speaking only for myself, not the company.)
I don’t want web packages, nor AMP, how do I get the ranking bonus and lightning bolt icon with my website (which has Google Pagespeed of 100 and Chrome Lighthouse Pagespeed of over 95)?
That’s the goal. Killing web packages and AMP, and actually ranking websites by its actual speed.
With web packages or AMP, if I navigate from Google Search to Page A, and then from Page A to Page B, Google can see that I went to page B. This is wrong. In an ideal world, Google wouldn’t be able to track anything, but as they are able to, we should limit this. As web packages and AMP lead to more ability for Google to track stuff, they need to be eradicated.
> I don’t want web packages, nor AMP, how do I get the ranking bonus and lightning bolt icon with my website (which has Google Pagespeed of 100 and Chrome Lighthouse Pagespeed of over 95)?
First, those metrics say how well optimized your site is, not how long it takes to load. For example, a tiny site that's text and a single poorly compressed image might load in 500ms but get a low score, while a large site that loads in 5s can still get a perfect score if everything is delivered in a completely optimized way. These are metrics designed for a person who is in a position to optimize a site, but not necessarily in a position to change the way the site looks. When speed is used as a ranking signal [1][2] Google isn't using metrics about optimization level, it's using actual speed.
But ok, metrics etc aside, Google could switch to using loading speed instead of AMP to determine whether a page is eligible for the carousel at the top, and whether to show the bolt icon. But AMP means a page can be preloaded without letting publishers know that they appeared in your results page. You can't just turn on preloading without solving this somehow. AMP is kind of a hacky way to do this, and I'm really looking forward to WebPackages allowing preloading for any site in a clean standard way.
> With web packages or AMP, if I navigate from Google Search to Page A, and then from Page A to Page B, Google can see that I went to page B.
No, web packages don't allow this, what makes you think they do?
(Disclosure: I work at Google on making ads AMP so they don't get to run custom JS. Previously I worked on mod_pagespeed which automatically optimizes pages to load faster and use less bandwidth. Speaking for myself and not the company.)
My understanding is this is also Malte's goal, and the goal of the Google Search folks. We need a way that Search can know that a website (a) will perform well and (b) can be preloaded in a privacy preserving manner. Right now only AMP can do this, but with Web Packages people will be able to do this without AMP. Once you can get (a) and (b) without AMP I will be super surprised if Search still prioritizes AMP.
(Disclosure: I work at Google, on making ads AMP so they don't get to run any custom JS. Speaking only for myself, not the company.)