New in AMP: Position observers, fluid ads and improved analytics for video & beyond

The AMP project saw a number of updates recently including: flexible, scroll bound animations; responsive sidebar layout, native video, improved ID tracking, fluid ads and extension tracking.

Driving the future of digital subscriptions

Flexible Sampling will now replace First Click Free. Publishers are in the best position to determine what level of free sampling works best for them. So as of this week, Google is ending the First Click Free policy, which required publishers to provide a minimum of three free articles per day via Google Search and Google News before people were shown a paywall. Longer term, Google is building a suite of products and services to help news publishers reach new audiences, drive subscriptions and grow revenue.

Google Testing Mobile First Index In The Wild

Google’s John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a hangout that Google is indeed testing the mobile first index in the live search results. He did not explain what percentage of searchers are seeing these live test results but I have to imagine it is really small. With this test, Google is not only looking to see how much it impacts the searchers and current rankings but they are also building new classifiers for debugging purposes.