AMP Validator to Check Pages for Specification Errors

An AMP page can look perfect in a browser and still fail as AMP: one ordinary script tag, one plain image element, and Google quietly treats the page as regular HTML or drops the AMP version altogether. This AMP validator checks your Accelerated Mobile Pages against the AMP specification and reports the errors, so you find out from a tool rather than from a silent loss of the lightning-bolt treatment in search results.

What AMP Validation Checks, in Plain Terms

AMP is a restricted dialect of HTML. In exchange for giving up most custom JavaScript, oversized CSS and a list of ordinary tags, a page gets a format that platforms can cache and render almost instantly. The catch is that the restrictions are strict and unforgiving: a page is either valid AMP or it is not AMP at all. There is no partial credit.

Validation is the act of comparing a page's markup against that rulebook. A validator reads the document and flags everything that breaks the specification: disallowed tags, missing required elements, incorrectly used AMP components, styles that exceed the size cap. Because AMP pages are usually generated by a theme, a CMS or a plugin, errors often enter through the template rather than through anything an author typed, which is why checking real, published pages matters more than checking your intentions.

What the Validator Reports Back

• A pass or fail verdict for the page as a whole, so you know immediately whether it counts as AMP.
• Individual errors with locations, pointing at the offending tag or element so you can find the problem in the source instead of guessing.
• Warnings for lesser issues, the deprecated or discouraged patterns that do not invalidate the page today but are worth cleaning before they become errors.
• A repeatable check you can run after every fix, template change or plugin update, because AMP validity breaks silently and often.

Validation sits naturally alongside the other checks in a technical SEO routine, such as confirming the page is reachable with a website status check before blaming the markup for a page that is simply down.

How to Validate an AMP Page

1. Open the AMP validator and enter the address of the page you want checked, using the AMP version of the URL if your site serves AMP from a separate address or parameter.
2. If you are testing a page before publishing, paste its source markup instead, so errors are caught before readers and crawlers ever see them.
3. Click Validate AMP and wait while the page is fetched and compared against the specification.
4. Read the verdict first, then work through the reported errors from the top; earlier errors sometimes cause later ones, so fixing the first can clear several at once.
5. Make the correction in the template, plugin setting or content that produced the faulty markup, not in a single page's output if the same error appears site-wide.
6. Run Validate AMP again on the updated page to confirm the fix, and then spot-check a second page of the same type.

A Worked Rescue: One Article Page, Three Errors

Consider a blog article whose AMP version fails. The report lists three problems. First, a custom script tag inserted by a social sharing plugin: AMP forbids author-written JavaScript outside its own component library, so the fix is to remove the injection on AMP output or swap the plugin feature for its AMP-compatible equivalent. Second, an ordinary image tag where the specification requires the AMP image component, a conversion your CMS normally performs automatically until a manually embedded image slips through. Third, an oversized embedded stylesheet, because AMP caps the CSS allowed in the page; the remedy is to trim unused rules from the theme rather than to argue with the number.

None of these were visible in a normal browser, where the page rendered beautifully. That is the recurring lesson of AMP maintenance: validity is a property of the source code, not of the appearance, and only a validator sees it.

Validation Habits, and What a Pass Does Not Mean

The sites that keep valid AMP treat validation as a step in publishing, not as an emergency tool. Validate one page of each type, article, product, landing page, after every theme or plugin change, because a single template edit can invalidate thousands of pages at once and the failure announces itself nowhere except in tools like this one and, eventually, in an SEO analysis of falling mobile traffic.

Be equally clear about the limits. A passing page is a compliant page: the validator certifies that the markup obeys the AMP specification. It does not certify that the page will rank, that it qualifies for any particular search feature, or that AMP is even the right strategy for your site, which is a separate decision about your audience and platform. And a normal, non-AMP page will always "fail" this check, correctly, because it was never written in the dialect. Validate the pages that claim to be AMP, fix what the report names, and let the verdict stay in its lane.

Frequently Asked Questions About AMP Validation

What is the difference between an error and a warning?

An error breaks the specification and the page does not count as valid AMP until it is fixed. A warning marks something deprecated or discouraged: the page still validates, but the pattern may become an error in a future version of the rules.

Why does my ordinary HTML page fail validation?

Because it is not written in AMP. Standard pages use tags and scripts the AMP specification forbids, so a fail is the expected result. Only validate pages that are meant to be AMP versions.

Do I need AMP for good mobile rankings?

Not as such. Fast, well-built mobile pages can perform without AMP, and AMP is a format choice, not a ranking requirement. If your site publishes AMP versions, though, they need to be valid for platforms to treat them as AMP.

The validator found an error in code I never wrote. Where did it come from?

Almost always from your theme, a plugin or an ad or analytics snippet injecting markup into every page. Fix it at that level, in the template or the plugin's settings, and every page it touched is fixed at once.

How often should I re-validate my pages?

After any change that can alter page markup: theme updates, new plugins, changed ad or sharing tools, and CMS upgrades. Validity is fragile precisely because so much of the page is generated by other people's code.

My page passes. Why is it not shown as AMP in search results?

Validation confirms the markup complies; discovery is a separate step. Search engines still have to crawl the page and find the link between the AMP version and its canonical page, so allow time after fixing errors before expecting the treatment to appear.

Validity Is a Habit, Not an Event

Valid AMP is invisible when it works and quietly costly when it breaks, which is why a validator belongs in the publishing routine rather than the emergency kit. Run the check after every template or plugin change, fix errors where they are generated, and your AMP pages will keep the status they were built for. The tool asks for a minute of your time; what it returns is certainty about a property no visual inspection can give you.