Server-Side A/B Testing - Okay for SEO?
-
Hey Moz Community!
I've been digging into the differences between server-side testing and client-side testing and had a generic question. Is it safe to run server-side A/B testing?
For example, if I want to Split Test the home page of a site and show 50% of my traffic one home page, and show 50% of my traffic a completely different (read: new template, new content, new CTAs, etc) home page, are there any implications to SEO and organic search?
I've spent about five hour researching and from what I can find A/B testing is acceptable as long as you don't show Googlebot different content or run A/B tests on Googlebot. Matt Cutts, head of Webspam at Google, has stated that A/B testing does not impact search rankings. "A/B or split testing or other forms of testing web sites is okay by Google as long as you don't test GoogleBot or don't treat GoogleBot differently."
The biggest concerns for SEO cloaking, so from my understanding, for server-side testing, you'd need to do user-agent based redirection so that Googlebot (or any search bot) gets the normal version of the home page. The bots shouldn't be part of the test. Technically that is cloaking, but intention-wise, we're not trying to be sneaky. I've also read through this article about experimentation from Google developers here.
Am I missing anything here or is there a definitive answer? If we serve a “B” as a different site for user testing, just exclude google bot by user-agent and we’re good? THANKS!
-
Hi,
I wouldn't be worried about this too much, the biggest and smallest sites in the world do A/B testing and most of the big ones run it through the back-end of their site. In all cases you're trying to improve the user experience and make sure they have a better time on your site. I don't worry about this for TNW at least.
-
Hello, my friend.
Good question you got here. Made my brain leftovers to spin.
Anyway, here is my understanding (and I can be completely wrong).
As Google always says, don't treat Google bot differently from human users, also, they say don't play a/b testing on him. At the same time Google Analytics' a/b testing is working like this: when you visit page for the first time, you get "normal" page, than, based on chance of a/b testing, you either gonna stay or be redirected after loading the page (this one is important) to test page. After this you are being assign a cookie, so every recurring visit you are not "played" with testing until test is complete. Then all cookies are removed and everybody is served whatever version of a/b testing "won".
So, putting three hypothesizes above together, my understanding is that Google bot is being treated the same way - it gets "assigned" (or simply served the original) a version of the page on the first visit. This makes sure that there is no confusion by Google which version of tested page to index.
I think as long as you keep this in mind, there won't be any troubles for SEO.
Hope this makes sense and helps you.
Cheers.
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
-
Can Very High Impressions and 0% Organic CTR Impact our SEO Rankings?
I have a very strange feeling that someone bad is trying to hurt our company, but maybe I am wrong. Let me explain. In the last two month, we have seen a very significant drop in sales on our website, but we couldn't figure out why. We have looked at different metrics (Google Search Console, Moz, Google Analytics), but everything looked alright. We had 10% loss in traffic, but we didnt believe at the time that it could be the main issue. Just yesterday we've discovered the following (please see attached screenshot😞 On August 18, 2018 Google launched Search Update On the same date, we had a jump in Organic Search Impressions for one particular keyword, which we never tracked before: "free facebook login". Majority of all impressions (233,000 out of 258,000) were from Philippines. Very low total number of clicks (50 clicks) led to 0% Average CTR for this keyword. Which in return, also lowered our global CTR by 1%. One month later we had 1000's of spam emails sent to our Helpdesk from two IP addresses, also from Philippines. We blocked them of course. It could be all coincidence. I dont know. But do you think that someone can use this fraudulent tactic to lower our CTR and drop our ranking and traffic? Can this influence our SEO in any way? It's also possible that someone is attacking Facebook and we just happen to be there, on the first page, for the same keyword. Should we try to eliminate our page for this keyword and see what happens? I've checked this article from Rand Fishkin - https://moz.com/blog/impact-of-queries-and-clicks-on-googles-rankings-whiteboard-friday and it seems that CTR is an important factor. However the article is from 2015 and maybe it's no longer relevant. What should we do? Thanks! G86Nge4
Conversion Rate Optimization | | plumrocket11 -
Split test content experiment - Why can't GA identify a winner here?
I have been running a content experiment for a short while now and GA has just ended it saying it cannot determine a winner. Looking at the images (links below), without any form of analysis I can already see a pattern of greater success in Variation 1. It ended with a 93% probability of outperforming the original yet the content experiment ended with no winner. Does this mean the 95% confidence threshold I set should've been lowered? Ultimately I'm going to choose this as my winner but why didn't GA push it as the winner? Is there something I am missing? Image 1 - Showing e-commerce performance (objective of split test was transactions) Image 2 - Showing conversions (same split test, same objective, just different report) Your thoughts and comments will be appreciated.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | OptiBacUK0 -
Any possibility to track goal completions/conversions at a sub-page (non-landing page) level in Google Analytics?
We’re promoting our sub-page it's http://www.flightcentre.ca/flights/london on our homepage under the slideshow so I need to see how many people went to the homepage, then went to this page, and then converted (enquired or booked.) What I can’t see is how many people did that. I know how to look up how many people landed on that page and then converted, but I need to know how many people navigated there and then converted. Is that possible? I can only see Goal Completions if I look at that page as a landing page, but that only presents a very slim view of the total visits when compared to those pages generally. Any way to check the entire behavior or activities happening through this page i.e. /flights/london?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | flightcentre200 -
Help with ecommerce duplicate pages and SEO advice(magento base site)
Hi, We have a magento build site (www.mokee.eu) and are selling our own branded goods. So far it is a very limited range of products. It's 1 baby crib in 5 variations. We recently started getting more sales from the site, so I started to look a bit more into optimising our site. I rewrote item name, created better descriptions, added meta titles and description etc. and subscribed to the MOZ analytics platform to understand a bit better ways to improve things up. From what I saw we have a big issue of duplicated content because our product pages are the same and only the product colour changes, which is something google apparently doesn't like However it is important for us that each colour get referenced by google so people who search for grey cot can find a picture of our grey cot etc... Also I was thinking to create only on multi variation page with all colour but when you have only 1 product to sell it might look a bit empty on the site. 1- Do you guys have some advise on how to go round this issue? 2- Do you have any other advise for my site in particular to optimise things and actually do you think i should be worried at all with such a small catalogue? Thanks Sam
Conversion Rate Optimization | | mokeestore0 -
Which rich snippet is better for SEO ?
Hello guys, I have rich snippet on my blog, actually I have 2 kinds of them... rating star and authorship... both of them apears on google when my site appears on the results... BUT.... just one of them by time. I notice that when someone rating one of my blog post, then in the google results for that post, It will show the stars and not the face of author and vice versa.. So I would like to know about your experience, wich one is better for seo and gain clicks, authorship or star rating ?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | lans27870 -
Optimising /product/ pages for our 15,000 product ecommerce store.
Hi guys! We're constantly working on evolving our /product/ pages on the site, however some times it's pretty easy to get lost in your own mess. Especially when the sites consists of 15,000+ products. So it's pretty painful to handcraft every single page. So I thought I'd jump in here to see if anyone had any suggestions for stuff we're missing, and or should improve? These are product pages: http://www.warcom.com.au/products/9954_draytek-vigor-120-single-port-adsl-122-modem http://www.warcom.com.au/products/49884_warcom-deluxe-double-lcd-monitor-stand---free-shipping There is a few issues we're aware of already.. Negatives: To many links in the left menus. To many links in the footer. Positives: We recently included rich snippets.. We're always testing out colors and styles. We're always testing meta data. Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | warcom
Paul.0 -
Responsive SEO - Redesign
My team is in the process of redesigning our main website. In order to balance Conversion Rate Optimization and SEO we are considering adding some features to the new site – HOWEVER we are wondering whether or not this will make any significant to our SERP’s. All together I am looking for your opinion – on two distinct areas. NOTE: Our site is built in plain HTML- No CMS. First (HOME PAGE) Content Slider above the fold. Our current site does a good job of utilizing this prime space with a balanced use of H1 and Text. However – it is not optimized for conversions. We feel a slider will kill both birds with one stone. Have you have any experience with this? What are your thoughts? Do SE’s like this? SECOND (NAVIGATION) We are adding a submenu to the site. Besides our Horizontal top menu and additional menu in a Column format is being discussed. We are thinking that the left placement will work better with conversions – however what do search engines like most – left or right navigations? Your input is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Daniel
Conversion Rate Optimization | | dhidalgo10 -
Site Design for SEO & Conversions
This is a Real Estate Website focusing on a local market. What would you change about this site for SEO Purposes? What would you change for Conversion Purposes? What would you change for Visual Appeal and User Experience? Thank you all for your help on this one. http://www.bronxpad.com
Conversion Rate Optimization | | bronxpad0