Turn Off Google AMP in HubSpot — It's Probably Hurting Your SEO

If you run a blog on HubSpot, there's a quiet setting that may be working against you right now. It's called Google AMP — Accelerated Mobile Pages — and if it's on (which it is by default on most HubSpot blogs), it's generating stripped-down versions of every post you've ever published.

The promise sounded good when it launched. The reality in 2026 is a different story.

What is Google AMP?

AMP was a framework launched by Google in 2015 with a simple pitch: give mobile users faster-loading pages by stripping your content down to a lightweight skeleton.

When AMP was enabled on your HubSpot blog, Google would crawl and serve a ?hs_amp=true version of each post alongside the real one. This AMP version had limited HTML, stripped JavaScript, restricted styling, and basic structured data.

For a few years, it came with a real incentive: only AMP pages could appear in Google's "Top Stories" carousel on mobile search. That made it hard to ignore.

Why AMP no longer makes sense

Google removed the requirement in 2021

In April 2021, Google announced that AMP would no longer be required for inclusion in Top Stories. The update, which rolled alongside the Page Experience / Core Web Vitals rollout, meant that any well-optimised page — AMP or not — could compete for those placements.

SEO firm SearchPilot tested this with multiple clients after the announcement. Their finding: no detectable negative impact on search performance from removing AMP pages.

The core value proposition was gone.

Mobile speeds caught up

AMP's performance advantage was real in 2015–2018, when mobile networks were slower and browsers less capable. Today, with modern mobile hardware, 5G networks, and Google's own Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal, a well-built standard page loads just as fast — and gives you full control over the experience.

As SEO Director Ross Allen put it: "Normal pages now supersede AMPs because they have full functionality with JavaScript and images. Previously, those functions were only available on desktop."

AMP strips your content signals

This is the part most HubSpot users don't realise. When AMP is enabled, Google's crawlers — and increasingly AI content engines — often scrape the AMP version of your page instead of the real one.

That AMP version is missing:

• Rich structured data / schema markup
• Full JavaScript-dependent content
• Your conversion elements (forms, popups, CTAs)
• Design and brand consistency
• Proper page authority signals

You're handing Google a skeleton and hoping it understands what your real page is about.

It creates duplicate URL problems in Google Search Console

Every AMP-enabled post generates a ?hs_amp=true URL that Google logs as a separate page. In GSC, these show up under "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" — not indexed, but being crawled. This wastes crawl budget and creates noise in your indexing reports.

HubSpot defaults it to ON

Newer HubSpot blogs have AMP turned on by default. There's no warning, no recommendation, no explanation of the tradeoffs. Most users have never touched the setting because "Accelerated Mobile Pages lets your content load instantly" sounds like a good thing.

It's a legacy feature that HubSpot hasn't deprecated, but that the SEO community broadly recommends turning off for standard business blogs.

How to turn off AMP in HubSpot

This takes under two minutes.

Step 1. In HubSpot, click the Settings icon (gear icon, top navigation bar).

Step 2. In the left sidebar, go to Website > Blog.

Step 3. Select the blog you want to update (if you have multiple).

Step 4. Click the Google AMP tab.

Step 5. Toggle "Turn on Google AMP formatted pages" to off.

Step 6. Click Save.

That's it. HubSpot will stop generating ?hs_amp=true versions of your posts. The existing AMP URLs will return 404 or redirect to the canonical post URL, and Google will eventually drop them from its index.

What to do after turning it off

Check your Core Web Vitals. Now that you're relying entirely on your standard pages for mobile performance, run your blog posts through Google PageSpeed Insights. If scores are low, that's where to focus next — image compression, lazy loading, and reducing render-blocking scripts.

Clean up GSC. The ?hs_amp=true URLs will clear out of Google Search Console over time, but you can accelerate this by using the URL Removal tool for any that are showing as errors.

Monitor rankings. Don't expect a negative impact — the evidence consistently shows there isn't one for standard business blogs. But it's worth checking your GSC performance report over the following 4–6 weeks to confirm.

Who might still benefit from AMP

For most business blogs — SMEs, agencies, consultants, SaaS companies — the case for AMP in 2025 is weak to non-existent.

The remaining use cases are narrow: large news publishers competing for Top Stories placements on mobile, and very high-traffic sites where every millisecond of load time has measurable revenue impact.

If you're running HubSpot for B2B lead generation, content marketing, or affiliate/referral traffic, AMP offers you nothing — and may be costing you indexing quality you've already earned.

The bottom line

AMP was built for a different internet. Google has moved on. The smart play is to let your real pages do the work — with their full content, proper schema, conversion elements intact, and a clean URL that Google indexes once, not twice.

Check your HubSpot blog settings today. If the AMP toggle is on, turn it off.

Sources: Google Search Central Blog (April 2021); SearchPilot AMP SEO analysis; Hurrdat Marketing; Playwire; HubSpot community discussions.