volatilegx - 8:15 pm on May 4, 2007 (gmt 0)

Although I've never done a test myself to prove whether A/B testing is frowned on by the SE's, I've never heard any anecdotal evidence that it is.

This topic has come up here recently [webmasterworld.com], and didn't get many replies then either. However, following a link in that thread to this one [webmasterworld.com] will lead you to a short thread on the topic which advises people to exclude bots from the B version.

This technique would seem to require a redirect to a B page that would be off limits via robots.txt. Strictly speaking, that's not really cloaking. It might be safer, though.