Industry News Digest: April 2024
- by Ilona K.
Table of contents
Welcome to our monthly Industry News Digest. Explore new online trends, platform features and domain industry news to stay up to date. Here’s a summary for April 2024.
Meta’s AI evolution: integrating Google and Bing results
Meta takes the next step in using artificial intelligence (AI), introducing it directly into its products. The company is deploying Llama 3, its latest Large Language Model, in the search bars of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp in multiple countries.
Users can access the AI via the new meta.ai site. Originally launched in the U.S., Meta AI is now expanding to over a dozen English-speaking countries.
Meta’s AI assistant now integrates real-time search results from Google and Bing, marking a significant advancement in AI assistant capabilities and their impact on the search industry. As the boundaries between traditional search and conversational artificial intelligence blur, companies are aggressively competing to lead the field, creating more solutions to make life easier for users online.
Image generation has been improved, allowing users to animate images or turn them into GIFs with better quality.
Meta is deploying AI into various platforms including search bars, chats, and feeds, enabling users to ask questions related to posts. However, widespread AI deployment poses challenges such as nonsensical responses, prompting Meta to provide guidance on AI limitations and constantly improve its models.
Why should you care? The emergence of generative AI makes the lives of users and businesses easier, allowing them to generate not only texts, but even videos and design. Now businesses can generate better visual content to attract potential clients, while users have an opportunity to find all the necessary information about you and your company without leaving Meta products.
However, this integration may have consequences for SEO, as visibility in integrated search results becomes increasingly valuable for publishers. SEO strategies may need to adapt to accommodate both traditional search engines and AI assistants, focusing on satisfying conversational queries to align with user interaction patterns.
Source: TechCrunch
625 domains are registered in the .ai zone per day
The latest update from the .ai registry underscores the remarkable growth of its domain zone. As of April 12, there are 425,060 registered domains, marking an increase of 71,132 since December 20, 2023. This significant expansion highlights the zone’s undeniable success, which entered the trends of last and current years.
The popularity of .ai is particularly noteworthy considering its relatively high price point of $70 per year, with a mandatory two-year minimum registration. This suggests that registrants either have immediate plans to utilize their domains or anticipate profitable sales.
Why should you care? The surge in .ai registrations aligns with the increasing prominence of artificial intelligence technologies, which have fueled its popularity. Over the past two years, the zone has tripled in size, indicating its enduring relevance. The .ai zone has taken tech-related nTLDs to a new level, setting trends in the domain industry for the next few years. It’s worth paying attention to such domain zones before the price begins to rise along with their popularity.
Source: Domain Incite
First 7-digit deal of the year and surge of AI domains
April marked the first secondary domain name sale over $1m in 2024: Afternic sold TP.com for $1,200,000. Prior to this, the highest value was Bagels.com sold in March for $500,000.
The top five most expensive domains include names in the .com extension, which indicates the undying popularity of this TLD (Top-Level Domain).
The ranking also includes nTLDs (new Top-Level Domain) such as .io, .xyz, .ca, and the .ai extension remains trending, with more than 25 domain names with this suffix sold for between $30,000 and $250,000 by the end of April this year.
Why should you care? Tech-related nTLDs are still in demand among consumers. At the same time, .com TLD shows stability, remaining one of the most popular and recognizable extensions. This position in the domain market makes it easy for buyers to decide on the domain zone they need and invest in a quality domain name.
Nowadays, the domain industry is replete with extensions that can provide the best options to match the trend. For instance, the .it.com extension combines the need for tech-related domains and trust of the .com suffix, allowing its users to get the best of both worlds.
Source: DN Journal
Google test new generative AI search in UK and US
Google is testing AI-generated overviews related to user query in the main search results interface, even for users who haven’t opted into the Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) labs feature.
This test is conducted on a subset of queries and a small percentage of U.S. and UK search traffic. Users may now encounter AI overview answers without explicitly opting in.
Initially, Google opened a Search Labs section for U.S. users to opt into SGE results in May 2023. However, some U.S. and UK users may now see AI answers without opting in. Google will display these AI overviews to a small subset of users, focusing on queries where generative AI can provide significant assistance, such as complex queries or those requiring information from various web pages.
The goal is to enhance the user experience by providing better responses than those available through traditional search. Google will test various variations of these AI overviews and seek feedback from users who haven’t opted into SGE.
Why should you care? This development may impact website traffic, potentially decreasing overall traffic compared to current search results. Therefore, it is worth paying attention to the quality of your content on the site and not relying only on keywords.
Source: Search Engine Land
Ads for brands: new products and strategies for YouTube Shorts
Google introduces new ad products and strategies for YouTube Shorts as the platform grows. They unveil YouTube Select Shorts, allowing advertisers to place ads alongside popular videos.
YouTube Shorts now has over two billion monthly users and 70 billion daily views globally, with connected TV viewership increasing by over 100% in 2023. To improve Shorts ads, Google expands its ABCD framework, proven to increase sales likelihood by 30% and brand impact by 17%.
The ABCD principles include Attention, Branding, Connection, and Direction, emphasizing immersive storytelling, early and prominent branding, emotional engagement, and clear calls-to-action.
Google emphasizes that successful Shorts ads feel authentic, relatable, casual, and entertaining.
Why should you care? The new YouTube Shorts ad products enable brands to tap into the vast audience of billions of monthly viewers, facilitating connections with audiences in innovative ways. This will allow businesses to run a more efficient advertising campaign, combining it with other tools to increase awareness of their brands online among more clients.
Source: Search Engine Journal
Stay up to date with digital trends and news – visit it.com Domains blog and follow us on social media.
Read also
