The replacement of FID by Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a Core Web Vital in March 2024 has redistributed the technical priorities across the entire web industry. This metric change, far from being cosmetic, now penalizes perceived latency on every user interaction, not just the first. We observe that teams that have not revised their client-side rendering strategy are already experiencing measurable setbacks in the SERPs.
INP and Core Web Vitals: the metric that changes front-end decision-making
FID only measured the delay of the first interaction. INP aggregates responsiveness across the entire session. A site can thus display a good FID while offering a degraded experience on the third click, such as on a product filter or a FAQ accordion.
This shift encourages a rethink of JavaScript architecture. Monolithic bundles that block the main thread for several hundred milliseconds are directly penalized. We recommend prioritizing granular code splitting, lazy hydration, and the use of Server Components to offload the browser.
Modern frameworks natively integrate these patterns. However, on themed WordPress or Shopify sites, the work remains manual: auditing third-party scripts, removing unnecessary polyfills, deferring non-critical handlers via requestIdleCallback. It is a continuous optimization project, not a one-time fix.
Resources like Journal Du Web allow you to follow these technical evolutions in real-time, preventing the discovery of an algorithm change after the fact.
Google’s AI Overview: what generative search changes for SEO
The major technical challenge for the web industry in 2024 is the AI Overview integrated directly into Google results. This feature generates a synthetic answer at the top of the page, before the traditional links.
The impact on organic click-through rates is direct. For short informational queries, a significant portion of users gets their answer without visiting any site. Therefore, the content strategy must evolve: produce pages that the AI cites as sources, not just pages that rank.
Three concrete levers emerge:
- Structure content with precise schema.org data (FAQ, HowTo, Article) to facilitate extraction by Google’s language model.
- Aim for complex and comparative queries where the AI Overview cannot provide a satisfactory autonomous answer, thus preserving the click.
- Strengthen the thematic authority of the domain through tight internal linking and regular publications on a coherent semantic scope.
SEO does not disappear, but the question shifts from “being first” to “being cited by the AI”. This is a paradigm shift for content and web development strategies.
Passwordless authentication: passkeys and impact on e-commerce UX
The adoption of passkeys by Apple, Google, and Microsoft in 2024 marks a turning point for the security and user experience of merchant and SaaS sites. Biometric or hardware key authentication replaces the username/password pair, eliminating the main vector for phishing.
For product teams, integrating passkeys changes the sign-up and login process. The classic form with a “password” field, “forgot password” link, and double confirmation entry becomes obsolete. The conversion funnel is thus shortened.
On the technical side, the WebAuthn API (level 2) is supported by all major browsers. Server-side implementation requires storing public keys, not password hashes, which reduces the attack surface in case of data leaks. For e-commerce sites, the benefit is twofold: less friction at purchase and a reduction in the risk of customer account compromise.
Edge-first architectures and server-side rendering: the infrastructure shift
The web in 2024 is migrating towards architectures where computation occurs as close to the user as possible. Edge functions, deployed on geographically distributed CDN nodes, reduce latency more effectively than static caching alone.
This edge-first shift has direct consequences on hosting and framework choices. Platforms like Vercel, Cloudflare Workers, or Deno Deploy offer distributed server-side rendering. HTML is generated at the edge of the network, improving Time to First Byte without sacrificing dynamic content.
For businesses, this means rethinking the decoupling between front-end and back-end. Monolithic architectures with a centralized server become a bottleneck for international performance. We observe that projects adopting an edge-first approach from the design stage gain in INP, TTFB, and resilience against traffic spikes.
The cost is not negligible: invocation-based billing models replace monthly server packages, requiring close monitoring of consumption. But for sites with distributed audiences, the performance/cost ratio clearly favors the edge.
These four axes (performance metrics, generative search, modern authentication, distributed infrastructure) outline the technical foundation of the web for the coming months. The digital trends in 2024 are not limited to the adoption of artificial intelligence tools for marketing. They touch the very foundations of sites: how they are rendered, measured, secured, and hosted.