I don't see why they need to highlight these pages. Apparently they already use page load speed as a signal in their search rankings. Why not just increase its importance?
> I don't see why they need to highlight these pages.
To lock more sites into their system. Sure, they don't need to, but it's definitely beneficial to them.
> Apparently they already use page load speed as a signal in their search rankings.
I hear this a lot too, but I don't think they really place much importance on load speed. Try searching for "weather", and see how many sites are slow to load, but are at the top of the list. Meanwhile fast-loading sites like http://myfreeweather.com/ are buried in the results.
I have no insight to the other multiple factors of their ranking algorithm, but I've never found speed to play much importance.
Because increasing its importance could be seen as tampering with the results for their own benefit, i.e. pushing a web-technology that they control. Adding a flag to it is sort of the same, but I'm guessing they are testing the waters with this and if they don't get legal repercussion, they'll actually change the search rankings.
No I'm not saying they increase the rankings of fast AMP pages. I'm saying increase the rankings of pages that are fast regardless of the technology they use. You can have a fast page with normal HTML.
