Google Consolidates A/B Testing web optimization Impact Assist Doc

Just like with Google’s consolidation of prevent spam on your site, Google did the same with his blog post on how to minimize A/B testing impact in Google Search. Google has repurposed that old blog post into an official help document in the Google Search developer docs.

Last week, it appears Google added a new help document named Minimize A/B testing impact in Google Search. If you look closely, it’s pretty much the same advice and structure of the blog post from a decade ago named Website testing and Google search. I spotted this via Rich Tatum on Twitter.

Google has been working more on its Google Search Central documentation and they also added a new top level hierarchy named “SEO fundamentals” to keep things more organized.

In any event, this A/B Testing SEO Impact document is broken down as follows:

• A/B Testing Overview
• Multivariant Testing Overview
• Best practices when testing
• Don’t cloak
• Use rel canonical links
• Use 302 redirects, not 301 redirects
• Run the experiment only as long as necessary and not longer
• and more links

So if you do a lot of testing on your site and it has been some time since you read Google’s doc on this, here is an updated version.

Forum discussion at Twitter.