Website de-indexed by Google due to A/B testing

[sett]

Hi,

I was doing a AB/split page testing for one of my client’s website. The test was for site’s home page and we have created a new copy of home page i.e. www.mysite.com/test.html both copies of home page i.e. www.mysite.com and www.mysite.com/test.html were loading for site users. The test.html page was not indexed in Google and not included in site’s xml site map. We have placed canonical tag on test.html page which was contacting main URL of site’s home page i.e. www.mysite.com

We were running this test campaign for past 10 days. Last night we got a notification (“pure spam”) from Google in WMT (search console) telling that our site has been de-indexed in Google.

I wanted to know that can this AB test a reason for this penalty as Google was considering our approach as cloaking technique.

Note- We were not using Google Analytics “experiment” procedure for this test, we were using a third party site for this Test.

[Andy Langton]

"Pure spam" is about as strongly worded as Google's messages get. E.g. see the examples here:

[google.co.uk...]

Google's definition:

Site appears to use aggressive spam techniques such as automatically generated gibberish, cloaking, scraping content from other websites and/or repeated or egregious violations of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

So, an A/B test is extremely unlikely to have created this impression.

[sett]

Thanks for your reply Andy.

I have already checked whatever Google mentioned about "pure spam"

I am sure that there is no automatically generated gibberish and scraping content case with our website. Whatever content we post on our website goes through various quality check process before publishing on our website. Our domain is more than 10 years old and we are careful while creating back links. We don't use any article submission, web directories, link exchange etc techniques. We never received any warning from Google regrading unnatural links.

[tangor]

A/B testing is "either/or" of a page/content. Your experiment appears to have two different pages showing as a single. If after 10 years, and all other things be true, then yes, you might have triggered a cloakinig foul and g REALLY does not like that (particularly since your test page was hidden from g from the get go.

[Andy Langton]

If it's genuinely an error as a result of A/B testing, then you should file for reconsideration and should be approved quickly. Again, "pure spam" is Google's strongest category, so I would be surprised if it could be explained by an A/B test.

What you've described doesn't seem to involve cloaking anyway, unless you were serving something different to Googlebot from other visitors. But even, then, I would not expect your whole site to be deemed "pure spam".

[tangor]

I agree with Andy ... ASK for reconsideration! As I said MIGHT (which I should have underlined, bold faced and italicized!)

[aakk9999]

Emphasis mine:

Note- We were not using Google Analytics “experiment” procedure for this test, we were using a third party site for this Test.

How were you using third party site? Is it possible that this third party site has somehow caused "pure spam" message you received?

[sett]

Thanks for your replies guys.

I have already submitted the reconsideration request today and removed the copy of home page.

I have gone through the all the links which are given at [support.google.com...] and regarding content whatever mentioned here is not applicable in our case.

I was doing AB testing for pages and third party software sending equal numbers of visitors on both pages i.e on our home page and copy of home page. The reason Why I suspecting the case of cloaking:

We mostly get clicks on google through our brand name search as per the Google search console account report. If anyone searching our brand name on Google and see our www.mysite.com page as first result on google. When visitors click on that then half of the clicks were taking visitors to www.mysite.com page rest of the clicks taking visitors to www.mysite.com/test.html page. Maybe Google considered that we are taking visitors to a different page instead the indexed one and consider our test as a part of cloaking.

[Andy Langton]

It's not impossible, but it would be very unlikely. There are thousands of companies running A/B testing in the manner you describe, and I've never come across any problems. A reconsideration request is the right approach if you're sure the penalty would not apply to your site, however.

[sett]

Thanks for your suggestions guys. I just wanted to update all of you that it was due to AB testing. Google has revoked our penalty :)

[tangor]

whew!

G does have their own version of A/B testing. Try that next time.

[sett]

I am not sure how Google will treat that :) AB testing for Organic traffic is really risky.

[tangor]

If you use g's a/b testing you will run no risk at all. THEY will be running the test behind the scenes and you set the parameters of the test, duration, and success desired. Expect a minimum of three weeks for a result, better, a three MONTH period.

It does work. And is g friendly. And will not invoke a penalty whatsoever.

[sett]

It may be true but we tested only for 8-10 days with third party site.