Site re-design, full site domain A/B test, will we drop in rankings while leaking traffic

[leshonk]

We are re-launching a client site that does very well in Google. The new site is on a www2 domain which we are going to send a controlled amount of traffic to, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% to 100% over a 5 week period.

This will lead to a reduction in traffic to the original domain.

As I don't want to launch a competing domain the www2 site will not be indexed until 100% is reached.

If Google sees the traffic numbers reducing over this period will we drop?

This is the only part I am unsure of as the urls and site structure are the same apart from some new lower level pages which we will introduce in a controlled manner later?

Any thoughts or experience of this type of re-launch would be much appreciated.

Thanks Pete

[SEO5Team]

Hi Pete,

Links to 2 articles below that reference A/B testing and their impact on SEO. The use of canonical tags is a recommended practice for the URL's being tested:

Impact of A/B testing on SEO

Website Testing - Google Search

Cheers,

SEO5..