A/B test on our hompeage

[hellsale]

Hello all, We are running an A/B test on our homepage and I had a couple of question if someone can answer them for me that would be great.

1. What is a proper way to do an a/b test so that our google ranking won’t fall?
2. Should I add a no index meta tag for the test page?
3. Will my ranking fall if I do add the no index meta tag on test page?

[tedster]

I'd say you've got the basic idea - keep test pages out of the Google index. If your test page gets the improved conversions, lower bounce rate or whatever your goal is, then you can launch that page as the new default page and let it be indexed.

With any split test, if organic ranking for that page is also important (as it might well be with a home page) then even after you promote it to "regular page" status, you still have a final step of monitoring the rankings for the new version.

[hellsale]

I dont know if the A/B test we are running affected this. But our homepage now is not getting result in Google. Our page was #1 for 10 of our top keywords and now its all gone. I've added a no index no fallow tag on the test page. Can this be why it has dropped out of the index?

This is the script that we are using for the a/b test.

<script runat="server">
protected override void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e){
ABTestMgr.execute(HttpContext.Current);
if (ABTestMgr.ABTestCode=="B"){
Response.Redirect("default-3.aspx"+Request.Url.Query);
}

base.Page_Load(sender,e);

if (!IsPostBack){
this.savePageTrackCookie("HOME",0);
}
}
</script>