amp-iframe

Usage

Displays an AMP valid iframe. amp-iframe has several important differences from vanilla iframes that are designed to make it more secure and avoid AMP files that are dominated by a single iframe:

• An amp-iframe may not appear close to the top of the document (except for iframes that use placeholder as described below). The iframe must be either 600 px away from the top or not within the first 75% of the viewport when scrolled to the top, whichever is smaller.
• By default, an amp-iframe is sandboxed (see details).
• An amp-iframe must only request resources via HTTPS, from a data-URI, or via the srcdoc attribute.
• An amp-iframe must not be in the same origin as the container unless they do not allow allow-same-origin in the sandbox attribute. See the "Iframe origin policy" doc for further details on allowed origins for iframes.

<amp-iframe
  width="200"
  height="100"
  sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin"
  layout="responsive"
  src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed/v1/place?key=AIzaSyAyAS599A2GGPKTmtNr9CptD61LE4gN6oQ&q=iceland"
>
</amp-iframe>

<amp-iframe width="200" height="100" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin" layout="responsive" src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed/v1/place?key=AIzaSyAyAS599A2GGPKTmtNr9CptD61LE4gN6oQ&q=iceland"> </amp-iframe>

Migrating from 0.1

Unlike 0.1, the experimental 1.0 version of amp-iframe has deprecated the frameborder attribute. Use the CSS border property to control <amp-iframe> borders.

Use existing AMP components instead of amp-iframe

The amp-iframe component should be considered a fallback if the required user experience is not possible by other means in AMP, that is, there's not already an existing AMP component for the use case. This is because there are many benefits to using an AMP component tailored for a specific use-case such as:

• Better resource management and performance
• Custom components can provide built-in placeholder images in some cases. This means getting, say, the right video thumbnail before a video loads, and reduces the coding effort to add a placeholder manually.
• Built-in resizing. This means that iframe content with unpredictable size can more often appear to the user as if it were native to the page, rather than in a scrollable frame
• Other additional features can be built in (for instance, auto-play for video players)

Usage of amp-iframe for advertising

amp-iframe must not be used for the primary purpose of displaying advertising. It is OK to use amp-iframe for the purpose of displaying videos, where part of the videos are advertising. This AMP policy may be enforced by not rendering the respective iframes.

Advertising use cases should use amp-ad instead.

The reasons for this policy are that:

• amp-iframe enforces sandboxing and the sandbox is also applied to child iframes. This means landing pages may be broken, even if the ad itself appears to work.
• amp-iframe does not provide any mechanism to pass configuration to the iframe.
• amp-iframe has no fully iframe controlled resize mechanism.
• Viewability information may not be available to amp-iframe.

Standalone use outside valid AMP documents

Bento allows you to use AMP components in non-AMP pages without needing to commit to fully valid AMP. You can take these components and place them in implementations with frameworks and CMSs that don't support AMP. Read more in our guide Use AMP components in non-AMP pages.

To find the standalone version of amp-iframe, see bento-iframe.

Iframe with placeholder <a name="iframe-with-placeholder"></a>

It is possible to have an amp-iframe appear at the top of a document when the amp-iframe has a placeholder element as shown in the example below.

• The amp-iframe must contain an element with the placeholder attribute, (for instance an amp-img element) which would be rendered as a placeholder until the iframe is ready to be displayed.
• Iframe readiness can be known by listening to onload of the iframe or an embed-ready postMessage, which would be sent by the iframe document, whichever comes first.

The following example shows an iframe with a placeholder:

<amp-iframe
  width="300"
  height="300"
  layout="responsive"
  sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin"
  src="https://foo.com/iframe"
>
  <amp-img layout="fill" src="https://foo.com/foo.png" placeholder></amp-img>
</amp-iframe>

The following example shows an iframe with an embed-ready request:

window.parent.postMessage(
  {
    sentinel: 'amp',
    type: 'embed-ready',
  },
  '*'
);

Iframe resizing

An amp-iframe must have static layout defined as is the case with any other AMP element. However, it's possible to resize an amp-iframe at runtime. To do so:

1. The amp-iframe must be defined with the resizable attribute.
2. The amp-iframe must have an overflow child element. This element can typically be a div. However, if the amp-iframe is child of a p element, it is recommended to use a span or button (to eliminate issues caused by p element's phrasing content).
3. The amp-iframe must set the allow-same-origin sandbox attribute.
4. The iframe document must send an embed-size request as a window message.
5. The embed-size request will be denied if the request height is less than a certain threshold (100px).

Notice that resizable overrides the value of scrolling to no.

The following example shows amp-iframe with an overflow element:

<amp-iframe
  width="300"
  height="300"
  layout="responsive"
  sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin"
  resizable
  src="https://foo.com/iframe"
>
  <div overflow tabindex="0" role="button" aria-label="Read more">
    Read more!
  </div>
</amp-iframe>

The following example shows an iframe resize request:

window.parent.postMessage(
  {
    sentinel: 'amp',
    type: 'embed-size',
    height: document.body.scrollHeight,
  },
  '*'
);

Once this message is received, the AMP runtime tries to accommodate the request as soon as possible, but it takes into account where the reader is currently reading, whether the scrolling is ongoing and any other UX or performance factors. If the runtime cannot satisfy the resize request, the amp-iframe will show an overflow element. Clicking on the overflow element will immediately resize the amp-iframe since it's triggered by a user action.

Here are some factors that affect how fast the resize will be executed:

• Whether the resize is triggered by the user action.
• Whether the resize is requested for a currently active iframe.
• Whether the resize is requested for an iframe below the viewport or above the viewport.

Iframe viewability

Iframes can send a send-intersections message to their parents to start receiving IntersectionObserver style change records of the iframe's intersection with the parent viewport.

[tip type="note"]

In the following examples, we assume the script is in the created iframe, where window.parent is the top window. If the script lives in a nested iframe, change window.parent to the top AMP window.

[/tip]

The following example shows an iframe send-intersections request:

window.parent.postMessage(
  {
    sentinel: 'amp',
    type: 'send-intersections',
  },
  '*'
);

The iframe can listen to an intersection message from the parent window to receive the intersection data.

The following example shows an iframe send-intersections request:

function isAmpMessage(event, type) {
  return (
    event.source == window.parent &&
    event.origin != window.location.origin &&
    event.data &&
    event.data.sentinel == 'amp' &&
    event.data.type == type
  );
}
window.addEventListener('message', function (event) {
  if (!isAmpMessage(event, 'intersection')) {
    return;
  }
  event.data.changes.forEach(function (change) {
    console.log(change);
  });
});

The intersection message would be sent by the parent to the iframe in the format of IntersectionObserver entry wheneve there is intersectionRatio change across thresholds [0, 0.05, 0.1, ... 0.9, 0.95, 1].

Attributes

src

The src attribute behaves mainly like on a standard iframe with one exception: the #amp=1 fragment is added to the URL to allow source documents to know that they are embedded in the AMP context. This fragment is only added if the URL specified by src does not already have a fragment.

srcdoc, frameborder, allowfullscreen, allowpaymentrequest, allowtransparency, and referrerpolicy

These attributes should all behave like they do on standard iframes.

If frameborder is not specified, by default, it will be set to 0.

sandbox <a name="sandbox"></a>

Iframes created by amp-iframe always have the sandbox attribute defined on them. By default, the value is empty, which means that they are "maximum sandboxed". By setting sandbox values, one can opt the iframe into being less sandboxed. All values supported by browsers are allowed. For example, setting sandbox="allow-scripts" allows the iframe to run JavaScript, or sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin" allows the iframe to run JavaScript, make non-CORS XHRs, and read/write cookies.

If you are iframing a document that was not specifically created with sandboxing in mind, you will most likely need to add allow-scripts allow-same-origin to the sandbox attribute and you might need to allow additional capabilities.

Note also, that the sandbox applies to all windows opened from a sandboxed iframe. This includes new windows created by a link with target=_blank (add allow-popups to allow this to happen). Adding allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox to the sandbox attribute, makes those new windows behave like non-sandboxed new windows. This is likely most of the time what you want and expect. Unfortunately, as of this writing, allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox is supported by Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera but not Edge.

See the docs on MDN for further details on the sandbox attribute.

Common attributes

amp-iframe includes the common attributes extended to AMP components.

Analytics

We strongly recommend using amp-analytics for analytics purposes, because it is significantly more robust, complete and an efficient solution which can be configured for a wide range of analytics vendors.

AMP only allows a single iframe that is used for analytics and tracking purposes, per page. To conserve resources, these iframes will be removed from the DOM 5 seconds after they loaded, which should be sufficient time to complete whatever work is needed to be done.

Iframes are identified as tracking/analytics iframes if they appear to serve no direct user purpose such as being invisible or small.

Validation

See amp-iframe rules in the AMP validator specification.