A/B Testing 2 Domain Names

Same pages but branded differently. SE penalties?

[StupidScript]

This question has just come up in a project that I am developing.

- The client owns two domain names.
- Both domain names are appropriate to the site content.
- Each name would have a different impact on a visitor.

(i.e. MyWidget.com and YouNeedThisWidget.com )

The pages within the domains are modified using PHP to reflect whichever domain the visitor used to get there. This means that typing "example1.com" will show the "example1" logo and any reference to the domain will read "example1". Typing in "example2.com" get the very same page but with "example2" branding.

How can we A/B test these domain names without jeopardizing search engine ranking, or even getting both domains banned outright for violating anti-duplication rules? If there is not sufficient traffic to both domains, any testing will be inconclusive, so we must publicize both domains to do a useful test.

[BarHopper]

You can now setup with your google accounts to specify that you will be A/B testing. Your A/B testing should only be done at a time period of 2 days each site. You should not have the same site setup for both days. Switch on and off for 2 day periods and make sure you know how often crawlers come around your site if you can take an average from your logs. Your site won't be penalized. Compare your data from the A/B testing and select the best site preference from which your reports show and go with it.

-Bar

[StupidScript]

Thanks, Bar! I hadn't heard of the A/B option for AdWords.

My issues are two:

1) This isn't an AdWords site, it's all organic.

I can easily test the user-agent and display only one site to any spider that visits, but that damages the test results as the spider will only rank the one version of the site. If the test expects to receive generic visitor data, that skews it right there. Domain #2 would never show up in the search results.

2) 2 days isn't nearly as long as I'd normally use.

If I pick Monday and Tuesday, that tells me nothing about weekend visitors, and so forth. Plus, the amount of data that might be gathered from a 2-day test is relatively insignificant and would be almost useless in analysing the effectiveness of one domain versus the other over the long haul.

I'd like to test for a full month before committing completely to one domain name.

Has anyone A/B tested domain names in an organic environment? If so, what was the impact on the sites in the SERPs, and did you need to overcome an anti-duplicate content penalty when the testing was concluded?

[BarHopper]

I was suggesting two days if you were going to do changes by hand. I recommend you look into getting SiteSpect. This software does A/B testing and gives back reports of your conversion rates analysis and site performance. Go check it out.

Good luck!

-Bar

[StupidScript]

Thanks again, Bar.

I've been doing A/B testing for many years. I've just not done it with two domain names since the SEs started penalizing for duplicate content.

So: Two domains, all content is identical except for the domain branding. SE anti-duplicate content penalties?