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
-
What is the Impact of Content Personalization on SEO?
I am using Optimizely to serve personalized experiences to our website users. Is there an impact on SEO ranking? The personalized content is dynamically changed on our website and the URL does not change. Thank you
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Dilgul0 -
Best Day of Week & Best Time of Day for B+B Email
For business to business email, should we avoid sending on Mondays and Fridays? The nature of the service is commercial real estate brokerage for office space in New York City. We are mailing to corporate decision makers in various industries (technology, finance, law). Should we avoid mailing during certain times of day? Or is there a best time of day to send the email. Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kingalan1
Alan1 -
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 -
Web Overlays - Region Specific Offers - SEO Implemention & Considerations
Hi all, I'm currently considering implementing some overlays on a site. They're likely to be time-specific (so running only on certain hours and days), visitors will only see it once and content will also be slightly different based upon the region of the visitor (US, Non-US). They will be marketing-based messages tailored to the visitor based on where they are visiting from, I was thinking about putting the content of the overlay in an <iframe>and blocking it from being crawled/indexed by bots.<br /><br />Would this approach set-off any alarms with Google in terms of cloaking or any other nasty things? To clarify, they'll be as unobtrusive as possible to the visitor.<br /><br />Based on the above approach, bots will see that an iframe is being called, but with more or less no content - would this be a problem too?<br /><br />Another approach i thought about would be to dynamically serve different images based on the region...<br /><br />Lastly, assuming correct and safe implementation from a technical perspective, as a generality, have people seen better results from capturing exit traffic, timed overlays or when people first land?<br />Any advice appreciated!</p></iframe>
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ElNino0 -
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 -
Tips on marketing actual "Products" rather than "SEO Advice"?
First of all I just want to say that I love SEOMoz, it's by far the best no-BS resource for SEO and online marketing information in general on the entire Internet, and well worth the money. HOWEVER, one beef I am starting to have with it recently is... Most of the content being generated is becoming about "how to market to marketers" or "selling SEO" rather than actual advice or focus selling general products or services. By this I mean that all the new trends towards pumping out content based on research, making fancy infographics etc. etc. are all well and good for those who are trying to market their marketing or SEO talents in general but not THAT applicable to traditional online storefronts. I work for a fairly large company that sells tickets for theme parks/attractions/tours etc. and SEOMoz was a huge help initially for a recent site redesign, but now every time I log on to check for fresh content it's seemingly a repeat similar advice on how to get links or traffic for an SEO business. I don't mean this to come off as a whine because as I said SEOMoz is wonderful, but I've conducted endless site searches for (recent) information on traditional online marketing etc. and the ratio just seems to be...off. Anyone else feeling this way?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ExperienceOz0 -
Spanish SEO
Does anyone know of a good SEO company for Spanish speaking sites besides BeyondROI? Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | geekdesign0 -
Conversion optimization with Optimizely, impact on SEO
I am looking into signing up with www.optimizely.com for conversion testing. They put scripting on my site which will then redirect half of my site visitors to an alternate home page. The site I want to test on is ranking quite well with Google and I do not want to hurt my rankings. And with this set up,what Google will think is my home page is not and so I am essentially sending visitors to a different page than Google reads as my home page in source code. So, my concern is whether this will have a negative impact on my SEO rankings to redirect 50% of site visitors to a different page using this testing tool? I would use Google Web Site Optimizer, but many of my sites are in Wordpress and it seems that Wordpress and web site optimizer are not so compatible. Advice would be appreciated. Thank you, Robert
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Robertnweil11