Google starts hiding amp page URLs in Chrome

Google’s Chrome browser has started hiding the URL of amp pages in Chrome. Instead of the original location of the amp page, Chrome shows the url the amp page is based on.

Amp is Google’s HTML variant for simplified sites that should load faster. Sites that create amp pages must support ‘signed exchanges’ for this, reports Google. Cloudflare, among others, offers this free of charge. This means that sites exchange the content of pages with cache servers that Google uses for amp, thereby authenticating themselves as the owner of that content. Chrome sees this as authentication of the website and so the browser puts a green lock next to it. Signed exchanges are part of a standard called web package. It is still unknown whether browsers other than Chrome will support this.

Where Chrome used to start with google.com/amp/ on amp pages on amp pages, this no longer happens on sites that support that, making users think they are on www.website.nl/article1. sitting, when in fact that is google.com/amp/www.website.nl/article1. It is the first time that Chrome shows a fake URL in the address bar.

According to Google, that step was taken to reduce user confusion, because many users do not realize that they are reading articles from a particular site. Site owners would also want this, because it makes it easier for them to keep up with statistics and fewer people click away quickly when the URL of the website is displayed, instead of a Google domain. The gray bar of amp pages also disappears when using this feature. As a result, it is no longer possible for users to check whether the url in the address bar is really the domain where they are located, and whether they are reading an amp page.