AB Testing - Organic Rank
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Hello,
Currently We are running an A/B test on a few pages, the footer and the header on our site. I was wondering what is the proper way to do an a/b test so that our google rankings won’t fall and that Google will only index one version at this time?
Thanks
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When I do this I make two pages at two different URL's. I only show one of them at a time while the other has a noindex tag and is blocked by search engines. When I have gathered data on the first version, I redirect it to the other page which has the new header and footer. This way I only have one version of the page at a time in Google's index. When one comes out of hiding, the other is redirected to it so I never have two live indexed pages that are essentially the same.
Probably other ways to do this, but that's just my method.
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Are you split testing with Google Website Optimizer or another tool?
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Hi dMoon,
Cut right to the chase and use Google's own tools
Try Google's Website Optimizer to handle your A/B tests. Everything will synch up with your analytics and provide a slick report in the dashboard.Happy testing
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Yeah, I absolutely agree with Josh. Thumbs up, Josh!
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What happens is both end up blocked?
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No, Page A is live and linked to internally. Page B is live both with no links, blocked by robots.txt file and has noindex tag. When I have my data on page A, I redirect it to page B and then remove the robots.txt block and noindex tag on page B. Page B begins blocked but ends up allowed and when it is allowed page A redirects to it so you never have two near identical versions of a page both live and indexable at once.
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OH! Sorry, I misunderstood. Solid way of doing this.
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Always split test with Google Website Optimiser as said above! The integration with Analytics is the cherry on the top for me!
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looks like the split testing is affecting our yahoo rankings. anyone experiencing the same issue?
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