• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. Digital Marketing
        3. Conversion Rate Optimization
        4. Server-Side A/B Testing - Okay for SEO?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Server-Side A/B Testing - Okay for SEO?

        Conversion Rate Optimization
        3
        3
        1971
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • andrewmeyer
          andrewmeyer last edited by

          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!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Martijn_Scheijbeler
            Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

            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.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DmitriiK
              DmitriiK last edited by

              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.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • culturefoundry

                Redirect Management on Headless Wordpress w/ React Front End

                Hello everyone, As Headless Wordpress becomes more and more popular, it becomes more complicated to manage and track 301 redirects. I'm reaching out for advice on this. Our main issue right now, is that after migrating from Drupal to a Headless Wordpress/React platform we lost the ability to track, manage, and view traffic analytics for users hitting those redirects. This was something we were able to do in Drupal. Example: If we have a redirect in place we could see how many times in the past x number of days that redirect was hit by users attempting to access the old URL. Unfortunately, Yoast Premium, has been helpful with other SEO needs, but this is one that it is not able to manage. Anyone have any ideas, experience, or thoughts on this issue? Thanks for your time

                Conversion Rate Optimization | | culturefoundry
                1
              • Kingalan1

                Best to Include Phone Number as CTA Button in Mobile Version of B+B Web Site?

                We are attempting to keep the number of CTAs (Calls to Action) on our commercial real estate website to a minimum. Our adjusted design (see attached) has 2 CTAs. One is "Contact Agent" the other is "Schedule a Tour". We are focusing on the listing page, which is the primary product page and critical in terms of CTA. Our mobile version does not show a phone number while the desktop version (also attached) displays a phone number. Should the mobile version also display a button a phone number? Some members of our target audiences, business owners and executives who are often in their 40s and 50s may prefer to call us up rather than communicate by written message. Any suggestions for elegantly displaying the phone number without causing confusion? I have read that the number of CTAs should be limited so I am on the fence as to whether or not to include a phone number Thanks, 
                Alan 6yR88Vt WwYpt81

                Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kingalan1
                0
              • plumrocket1

                Can Very High Impressions and 0% Organic CTR Impact our SEO Rankings?

                I have a very strange feeling that someone bad is trying to hurt our company, but maybe I am wrong. Let me explain. In the last two month, we have seen a very significant drop in sales on our website, but we couldn't figure out why. We have looked at different metrics (Google Search Console, Moz, Google Analytics), but everything looked alright. We had 10% loss in traffic, but we didnt believe at the time that it could be the main issue. Just yesterday we've discovered the following (please see attached screenshot😞 On August 18, 2018 Google launched Search Update On the same date, we had a jump in Organic Search Impressions for one particular keyword, which we never tracked before: "free facebook login". Majority of all impressions (233,000 out of 258,000) were from Philippines. Very low total number of clicks (50 clicks) led to 0% Average CTR for this keyword. Which in return, also lowered our global CTR by 1%. One month later we had 1000's of spam emails sent to our Helpdesk from two IP addresses, also from Philippines. We blocked them of course. It could be all coincidence. I dont know. But do you think that someone can use this fraudulent tactic to lower our CTR and drop our ranking and traffic? Can this influence our SEO in any way? It's also possible that someone is attacking Facebook and we just happen to be there, on the first page, for the same keyword. Should we try to eliminate our page for this keyword and see what happens? I've checked this article from Rand Fishkin - https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/impact-of-queries-and-clicks-on-googles-rankings-whiteboard-friday and it seems that CTR is an important factor. However the article is from 2015 and maybe it's no longer relevant. What should we do? Thanks! G86Nge4

                Conversion Rate Optimization | | plumrocket1
                1
              • Arnaud_Fo

                Overlay / modal for product pages - bad or good for SEO?

                Hi all, I am considering using full overlays/modals for an e-commerce site for all our product pages (category/listing pages will be "normal", the product page will come over the listing page as an overlay/modal when you click on the product). Those “product overlays” will also be accessible directly with own URL (if need to be linked to for ex.). All the literature I find out there treats overlays and modals as “marketing” ones (ads, sign-ups, etc.) and is generally critical to overlays when it comes to SEO, while also saying that an overlay that has to do with good UX should not hurt the SEO of our site. What do you think? Will all product pages as overlays be considered as good UX by the search engines and therefore not be negatively impacted, SEO speaking? Or should we stay clear of overlays and create “normal” product pages? Thanks in advance! Arnaud NB: The reason we want to create those overlays are for design and UX purposes, and try to increase our conversion rate.

                Conversion Rate Optimization | | Arnaud_Fo
                0
              • RetailClicks

                Date of Review on productpage - important for SEO?

                Hi Have a questions. We have lots of products on the website. A lot have reviews and some do not.
                Is it harming that review dates (post dates) are older then let's say 1-2 months? Cause we do not have fresh reviews every month. So is it better to then let the dates behind and not show? Or is it better to show 'old' dates. How important are fresh review dates on the website? We have hreview tags around the reviews and dates.

                Conversion Rate Optimization | | RetailClicks
                0
              • datarat

                Customer journey / customer drop off

                Hi All, I would like to understand how visitors navigate through my site and find out where the main drop out areas are (i.e. what pages / sections of the site do users leave on). I will then be segmenting by mobile, tablet, new visitor, returning etc. to see how the various subsets of users behave. To do this I generally do the following: Identify main sections of the (ecomm) site: homepage, category pages, product pages, cart, checkout 1, checkout 2, checkout x, payment confirmation. For each section above I either use a segment to isolate that section of the site, either by regex or a simple page selector and apply to the Audience >> Overview report and record the resulting session count. OR I filter the Behaviour >> Site Content >> All Pages report to isolate the various site sections and record unique pageviews. I then plot these figures horizontally under a heading for each section of the site representing a flow between the pages of the site with a calculation showing the difference between each section of the site which represents user drop off. Hope that makes sense. What I am interested to know is, do you have any better suggestions to the process laid about above. Do you see any issues with this process?

                Conversion Rate Optimization | | datarat
                1
              • LinkMoser

                How can I track the traffic source/keyword of form submissions?

                I'm using Google Analytics on www.nhfinehomes.com and would like to track the source of leads submitted via form submissions. Ideally, I could track if the lead originated from organic search (and what keyword phrase), PPC, referral links, etc. Is this possible with Google Analytics and if so, can anyone point to some documentation on how to do this or better yet someone who can help me set this up? This site is running ASP.NET and uses JQuery so there is not a 'traditional' thank you page that I can reference. I'm not a programmer and do not pretend to be one! Thanks in advance. Link

                Conversion Rate Optimization | | LinkMoser
                0
              • Andy.Drinkwater

                Advice on SEO for Chinese Website in China

                Hey folks, I am a little out of my depth here because I have never SEO'd a website that is not in English - and especially in China. I have a few questions that I hope someone can help with? What are the primary SE's in China Are there any specifics with regards Keyword Research Are there any specifics around SEO techniques and climbing up the SERPs? I know I don't speak Chinese but I will need to be advising. Thanks, Andy

                Conversion Rate Optimization | | Andy.Drinkwater
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.