Removing AMP Pages Without Losing Search Traffic

Short answer: AMP is no longer required for Google’s Top Stories carousel, and many sites now remove it to maintain one version of each page. To do it safely, first make sure your regular pages are fast on mobile, then 301-redirect every AMP URL to its canonical page, remove the amphtml link tags, update analytics and ads, and monitor Search Console and traffic for a few weeks. Do not simply switch off AMP so that its URLs return 404, and do not block them in robots.txt.

Why sites are removing AMP

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) was introduced to make mobile pages load quickly through a restricted HTML format and caching by search engines. For several years, publishers used it mainly because AMP pages were eligible for the Top Stories carousel in Google Search and carried a lightning-bolt badge.

That changed with Google’s page experience update in 2021. Top Stories became open to non-AMP pages, and the AMP badge disappeared. Since then, AMP has been one way to build fast pages, not a requirement for any search feature. Speed is now judged the same way for all pages, through signals such as Core Web Vitals.

Reasons sites give for removing AMP include:

• Double maintenance: every template, design change and feature has to be built twice.
• Feature gaps: forms, interactive elements and some tracking behave differently or are limited on AMP.
• Inconsistent experience: AMP pages often look and work differently from the main site.
• Analytics complexity: sessions can be split between the AMP cache and your domain.
• Fewer benefits: without special search features, the main advantage is speed, which a well-built regular page can match.

When keeping AMP still makes sense

Removing AMP is not automatically right. Keep it, at least for now, if your regular mobile pages are much slower than your AMP versions and you cannot fix that soon, or if a large part of your traffic arrives through platforms that still rely on AMP pages. Check your analytics and Search Console before deciding: how much traffic lands on AMP URLs, and from where?

A short checklist helps structure the decision:

• What share of organic mobile visits currently lands on AMP URLs?
• How do Core Web Vitals of the regular mobile pages compare with the AMP versions?
• Which features, such as forms, comments or personalisation, are missing or limited on AMP today?
• How much developer time goes into keeping AMP templates in sync with the main design?
• Do any partners, apps or feeds still link specifically to your AMP URLs?

If the regular pages are already fast and AMP costs noticeable maintenance time, removal usually pays off.

If your site is “AMP-first”, where the AMP page is the only and canonical version, removing AMP means rebuilding templates rather than redirecting URLs. The URLs can often stay the same, which makes the SEO side simpler, but the development work is larger.

Step 1: Make the canonical pages fast first

The most common reason traffic drops after removing AMP is that mobile visitors suddenly get slower pages. Before switching anything off, compare the two versions:

1. Test representative pages of each template, both AMP and regular, with PageSpeed Insights on mobile.
2. Compare field data for Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift where available.
3. Fix the obvious gaps on the regular pages: image sizes, render-blocking scripts, third-party tags and fonts.
4. Check the regular pages for the same content, structured data and metadata as the AMP versions, so nothing important is lost. The mobile-first indexing checklist covers what must match.

Step 2: Redirect every AMP URL

AMP URLs have been indexed, shared and linked for years. They need to keep working after AMP is gone. The correct approach is a permanent 301 redirect from each AMP URL to its canonical page. The difference between redirect types is covered in 301 vs 302 redirects.

Usually a single pattern rule at server or CDN level handles this. Test it with real URLs, including URLs with query parameters, and make sure the redirect goes straight to the final page without a chain. Redirect chains and loops explains how to check.

If you use a CMS plugin to generate AMP, check whether deactivating it also creates redirects. Many setups simply stop serving the AMP URLs, which then return 404. Add your own redirect rule before or at the moment you switch the plugin off.

Step 3: Remove AMP references from your pages

Regular pages that had AMP versions contain a link tag pointing to the AMP URL:

<link rel="amphtml" href="https://www.example.com/article-name/amp/">

Remove it from all templates. A leftover amphtml tag pointing to a redirecting URL sends crawlers on a pointless round trip and keeps the AMP report in Search Console busy with errors.

Also check:

• XML sitemaps, which should not list AMP URLs.
• Internal links that point directly to AMP URLs, for example in older articles or email templates.
• Structured data that references AMP URLs.
• Canonical tags on the regular pages, which should point to themselves, as explained in canonical tags explained.

Step 4: Update analytics, ads and consent

AMP pages usually have their own analytics configuration, ad setup and consent handling. When they disappear:

• Remove AMP-specific analytics properties or streams from reports, so comparisons are not distorted.
• Annotate the switch date in analytics and reporting tools.
• Check that ad units and consent banners on regular pages cover the traffic that used to land on AMP.
• Expect a shift in how sessions are counted, because visits that used to start on a search engine’s AMP cache now start on your domain.

Step 5: Monitor the switch

After the change, watch the following for several weeks:

1. Search Console Performance: clicks and impressions for the affected pages, especially on mobile and in news-related features.
2. Page indexing: AMP URLs should gradually be reported as redirects, and canonical pages should remain indexed.
3. AMP report: the number of AMP pages should decline over time. Errors about missing AMP pages are expected during the transition.
4. Core Web Vitals: field data for the regular pages as mobile traffic moves onto them.
5. Spot checks: inspect a few old AMP URLs with the URL Inspection tool to confirm Google sees the redirect.

Cached copies of AMP pages on search engine caches are refreshed as crawlers revisit the URLs and see the redirect. This can take some time for rarely crawled pages, which is normal.

A temporary dip in mobile traffic of a few days is not unusual while search engines process the redirects. A sustained drop on specific templates usually points to a concrete cause: slower pages, missing structured data or redirects that do not work for some URL patterns. Compare the affected pages before and after to find it rather than reverting the whole change.

Mistakes to avoid

• Letting AMP URLs return 404 instead of redirecting them.
• Blocking AMP URLs in robots.txt, which prevents crawlers from seeing the redirects.
• Redirecting all AMP URLs to the home page instead of their matching pages.
• Leaving amphtml tags in templates after the AMP versions are gone.
• Removing AMP on the busiest news day of the year. Choose a quiet period, and consider starting with one section of the site.
• Forgetting the regular pages’ structured data. If article or product markup existed only on the AMP versions, add it to the canonical pages before the switch.
• Changing design, URLs and hosting at the same time as removing AMP. Separate changes make it much easier to find the cause if traffic moves.

How Site SEO AI Audit helps

After the switch, Site SEO AI Audit crawls your site and reports status codes, links that point to redirects, redirect chains and loops, canonical problems and sitemap issues, so leftover AMP links or broken redirects stand out. Its speed area uses Google PageSpeed data, LCP and CLS, which helps confirm that the regular pages now serving all mobile visitors are fast enough. You can start with a free audit of your website.

Related reading

• Website Migration SEO Checklist: Before, During and After
• How to Fix a Slow Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
• Technical SEO Monitoring: Catch Problems Before Traffic Drops

The bottom line

AMP is now optional for search features, and many sites are better off maintaining one fast version of each page. Remove it like a small migration: make regular pages fast first, 301-redirect every AMP URL to its canonical page, remove amphtml tags and AMP URLs from sitemaps and links, update analytics and ads, and monitor Search Console until the AMP URLs have been processed as redirects.

FAQ

Is AMP still needed for Google Top Stories?

No. Since Google’s page experience update in 2021, non-AMP pages are eligible for Top Stories. Pages still need to meet Google News and content policies to appear there.

Will removing AMP hurt my rankings?

Not if your regular pages are fast and every AMP URL redirects to its canonical page. Drops usually come from slow mobile pages or AMP URLs that suddenly return 404.

Should AMP URLs return 404 or redirect?

They should redirect with a 301 to the matching canonical page. That keeps links, bookmarks and indexed URLs working and passes their signals to the regular pages.

How long do AMP pages stay in search after removal?

They drop out as search engines recrawl the URLs and see the redirects. For frequently crawled pages this happens within days or weeks; rarely crawled pages can take longer.

Do I need to remove the amphtml link tag?

Yes. Once AMP versions are gone, the tag points to URLs that only redirect. Removing it avoids needless crawling and misleading errors in Search Console.