AB Testing - Organic Rank
-
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
-
looks like the split testing is affecting our yahoo rankings. anyone experiencing the same issue?
-
Always split test with Google Website Optimiser as said above! The integration with Analytics is the cherry on the top for me!
-
OH! Sorry, I misunderstood. Solid way of doing this.
-
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.
-
What happens is both end up blocked?
-
Yeah, I absolutely agree with Josh. Thumbs up, Josh!
-
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
-
Are you split testing with Google Website Optimizer or another tool?
-
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Panda 4.1 - Regained rankings by making changes on my site
So thought I would share this with others as it 'might' help. So I got around 40 pages, all of them have taken a dive in rankings so on average from Pg1/2 to Pg5/6. I took one page and started working on content upgrades, I had around 50 words of boiler plate content above the fold and 750 words of unique content way down the page so maybe 600px below the fold before you hit it. I removed the boiler plate content and produced 75 words of unique content to replace it, I shuffled things around and managed to get the 750 words maybe 250px below the fold then chucked another 100 unique words into the mix. Fetched the page in GWMT's and resubmitted the URL - hour later that page alone, the page I upgraded had recovered its rankings back to the original position before Panda 4.1 hit. Will the rankings for this page drop back down again, not sure but interesting this page was Pg6/7 since the 23rd and doing the above within an hour regained rankings back to Pg2 middle.
On-Page Optimization | | followuk1 -
Can we rank website without main keywords on its homepage?
For example my company website on Google Search Engine... Web Design Company & Digital Agency in Jakarta
On-Page Optimization | | Japracool
coriate.com/
Coriate is a website design & Internet marketing firm in Indonesia. We offer the best web solutions, digital advertising, and SEO Services in the industry. Can I do backlink to it, but different keywords? Like Social Media Management or Facebook Like?0 -
Panda 4.0 indirectly affecting my rankings (maybe)
Hi, So my site supplies Q&A type of content - user queries a question and generally they get the answer from my site (landing page). I always make sure my content is (1) unique (2) answers the question (3) extensive in answering the question - reason being I rely on social shares quite a bit and that system works very well, sharing happens with my content. But one of my main pages has dropped from position 5 to position 10 in the last few days - I assume its panda 4.0 because my rankings have been rock for around 2 years. But I don't think its dropped my site, I think it has boosted others above me. The thing I don't understand is the sites its boosted above me have very little content and in some cases lots of Adsense surrounding it. I'm not moaning just a bit confused: I have 750 words of good content, another sites comes out of nowhere with 50 words -> how can Google decide the 50 word site is better using the panda algo? This is me assuming the panda algo is purely content/copy based. Does it take other things into account such as freshness, layout, bounce rate? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | followuk0 -
Acquired Old, Bad Content Site That Ranks Great. Redirect to Content on My Site?
Hello. my company acquired another website. This website is very old, the content within is decent at best, but still manages to rank very well for valuable phrases. Currently, we're leaving the entire site active on its own for its brand, but i'd like to at least redirect some of the content back to our main website. I can't justify spending the time to create improved content on that site and not our main site though. What would be the best practice here? 1. Cross-domain canonical - and build the new content on our main website? 2. 301 Redirect Old Article to New Location containing better article 3. Leave the content where it is - you won't be able to transfer the ranking across domain. Thanks for your input.
On-Page Optimization | | Blenny0 -
Different Rankings In Google Mobile
Does Google mobile have different signals? For some reason I seem to rank better with certain pages on the mobile site?
On-Page Optimization | | TP_Marketing0 -
Homepage ranking before optimized page
We finally managed to obtain a spot in the first 10 positions of the serps for our main keyword. Since a week, our homepage started ranking in the top 15 as well, so we we're pretty excited about that. On our way to dominate the top 10! Since 2 days we started to rank with our homepage before our optimized page, which sucks because the metadescription (made up by Google) isn't helping our CTR. Is there a way that we can show Google that the other page is more relevant than the homepage? Or do we have to wait until we have build up enough PA to switch places with the homepage (seems unlikely to me).
On-Page Optimization | | duoweb0 -
Ranking for specific pages
HI, Lets say my website is abc.com and my targeted keyword is abc for index page. Internal pages, like abc.com/apple.htm, abc.com/banana.htm. The targeted keyword for apple.htm is fresh apples, buy apples, and for banana.htm, fresh banana, buy banana. How to define these keywords in the campaign. Please suggest. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | younus0 -
How long would it take for On-Page Optimization to have an effect on Google Rankings?
Hi there, I have a page on our website with an Interview with the author Tess Gerritsen. There has been a reasonable amount of Social Media buzz related to the page and lots of links. According to SEOMoz we are an A grade for the keyword Tess Gerritsen, we currently rank 29th on Google.co.uk for a 'tess gerritsen' search. My question is - how long would it take for any new changes to have an effect? I presume the answer would be whenever the page is crawled again. But is it wise to change one thing, then get crawled and see what the effect is, then the next day change something else and see what the effect is. Or is it wise to change one thing and then leave it a week or so to see the full effect of the change? Apologies for the vague question, if you need any more clarification just let me know. Thanks. Benj
On-Page Optimization | | Benj250