网站测试与Google搜索
使用集合让一切井井有条
根据您的偏好保存内容并对其进行分类。
2012年8月29日星期三
发表人:
Susan Moskwa
,网站管理员趋势分析师
原文:
Website testing & Google Search
最近我们收到了几个关于网站测试——比如A/B测试和多变量测试——是否会影响网站在搜索结果中表现的问题。我们很高兴大家有这样的提问,因为这说明大家在做测试,这让我们很开心!A/B测试和多变量测试都是确保您所提供的内容能够有效吸引用户的优秀方法。
在我们深入探讨搜索所造成的影响之前,先做一个简短的介绍:
网站测试
:当您试验自己网站(或网站的某些部分)的不同版本,以及收集用户对每个版本的反应数据时,就会进行网站测试。您可以使用软件来跟踪各个版本,看看哪个版本能够吸引用户按照您的设定进行操作:比如促成了最多的购买交易,或带来了最多的电子邮件注册量,或您正在测试的任何其他项目。测试完成后,您可以更新网站,以便使用在测试中胜出的“赢家”—— 最有效的内容。
A/B测试
:当您通过创建某页面的多个版本、且每个版本都有自己专有的URL来运行某项测试时,就会进行A/B测试。当用户尝试访问原始URL时,您会将他们中的一部分人重定向到这些变量URL中的每一个,然后对用户行为进行比较,看看哪个页面最有效。
多变量测试
:当您使用软件来改变您的网站的不同部分时,就会进行多变量测试。您可以测试页面的多个部分所出现的变化,比如标题、照片,和“添加到购物车”按钮等,软件将以不同的组合方式向用户显示每一部分的变量,然后进行统计分析,看看哪些变量最有效。只会涉及一个URL;这些变量会被动态植入到该页面上。
那么,这会对Googlebot在您的网站上“看到”的内容造成什么影响呢?提供不同的内容变化,会改变您的网站的排名方式吗?下面是一些指导原则,告诉您如何在对网站搜索表现造成最小影响的情况下运行有效测试。
• 不要伪装。
所谓
伪装
,是指向用户显示的是一组内容,向Googlebot显示的却是另一组不同内容,这种操作是有悖于我们的
网站站长指南
的,无论您是否在运行测试。请确保您没有根据用户代理来决定是否要进行该测试,或决定要提供的具体内容变化。这方面的一个例子是,当您看到用户代理是“Googlebot”时,要始终提供原始内容。请记住,违反我们的网站站长指南,会导致您的网站从Google搜索结果中降级或移除 —— 这可能不是您进行测试所期望的结果。
• 使用rel =“canonical”。
如果您运行有多个URL的A/B测试,可以在所有的备用URL上使用
rel=“canonical”
链接属性,以表明原始URL是首选版本。我们建议使用rel=“canonical”,而不是noindex元标记,是因为在这种情况下它更符合您的意图。比方说,您正在测试您的网站主页的变量;您不希望搜索引擎无法索引您的主页,只是希望搜索引擎能了解,所有的测试URL都是原始URL的近似副本或变量,应该进行这样的分组,以原始URL作为标准。在这样的情况下使用noindex,而不是rel=“canonical”,有时会产生料想不到的后果(例如,如果出于某种原因,我们选择了其中的某个变体URL作为标准URL,那么“原始”URL也可能会被取消索引,因为它会被视为一个副本)。
• 使用302,不要使用301。
如果您正在运行A/B测试,将用户从原来的URL重定向到某个URL变量,请使用302(临时)重定向,而不是301(永久)重定向。这会告诉搜索引擎此重定向是临时的——它只会在您运行实验的时候存在,并告诉搜索引擎应该在索引中保留原始URL,而不是用重定向的目标(测试页)取代它。您也可以使用基于JavaScript的重定向。
• 只在必要的情况下运行实验。
进行一项可靠测试所需要的时间有所不同,取决于多种因素,比如您的网站转换率,网站流量等;优秀的测试工具应该能够告诉您何时已经收集到足够数据来得出一个可靠结论。一旦完成测试,您应该使用所需的内容变量来更新您的网站,并尽快删除测试的所有要素,比如备用网址或测试脚本和标记。如果我们发现某个网站运行试验的时间超过不必要的长度,我们可能会将此解读为试图欺骗搜索引擎,并会采取相应行动。如果您将一种内容变化提供给很大比例的用户,就尤其可能会发生这种情况。
按照上述建议操作,应该能让您的测试对网站在搜索结果中的表现造成很小影响或根本没有影响。不过,根据您测试的内容类型,如果Googlebot在您进行测试的时候抓取或索引了您的某些内容变量,也有可能对网站的搜索排名没有什么影响。一些小的变化,比如按钮或图像的尺寸、颜色、或位置,或您的“行动”文本(“加入购物车”vs“购买!“)方面的小变化,可能会对用户与您的网页之间的互动产生惊人的影响,但往往对该网页的搜索结果或排名产生的影响很小或根本没有影响。此外,如果我们经常抓取您的网站,频率之高足以检测和索引您的试验,在您结束试验后,我们很可能会快速索引您对网站进行的最后更新。
要了解关于网站测试的更多信息,请查看关于内容试验(Content Experiments)的
这些文章
;“内容试验”是
Google Analytics
中的免费测试工具。另外,您也可以到我们的
Analytics帮助论坛
咨询关于网站测试的问题,或到
网站管理员帮助论坛
咨询关于搜索影响的问题。
如未另行说明,那么本页面中的内容已根据知识共享署名 4.0 许可获得了许可,并且代码示例已根据 Apache 2.0 许可获得了许可。有关详情,请参阅 Google 开发者网站政策。Java 是 Oracle 和/或其关联公司的注册商标。
最后更新时间 (UTC):2012-08-01。
[null,null,["最后更新时间 (UTC):2012-08-01。"],[[["\u003cp\u003eWebsite testing, including A/B and multivariate testing, is encouraged to optimize user experience but should be implemented carefully to avoid negatively impacting search engine rankings.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eTo ensure testing does not violate Google's guidelines, avoid cloaking, use rel="canonical" for A/B testing with multiple URLs, and utilize 302 redirects instead of 301 redirects for temporary variations.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWebsite testing should be conducted for the minimum necessary duration, as prolonged testing with significant content variations may be perceived as deceptive by search engines.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWhile Googlebot might crawl content variations during testing, minor changes like button or image adjustments often have minimal impact on search rankings.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Website testing, like A/B and multivariate testing, should follow specific guidelines to avoid negatively impacting search performance. Avoid cloaking, ensuring all users, including Googlebot, see the same content. Use `rel=\"canonical\"` on alternate URLs in A/B tests to indicate the preferred original URL. Employ `302` redirects for A/B tests, signifying temporary changes. Run tests only as long as needed, then update the site and remove testing elements. Minor content changes often don't impact search results.\n"],null,["# Website testing and Google search\n\nThursday, August 09, 2012\n\n\nWe've gotten several questions recently about whether website testing---such as A/B or multivariate\ntesting---affects a site's performance in search results. We're glad you're asking, because we're\nglad you're testing! A/B and multivariate testing are great ways of making sure that what you're\noffering really appeals to your users.\n\nBefore we dig into the implications for search, a brief primer:\n\n\n**Website testing** is when you try out different versions of your website (or a part of your\nwebsite), and collect data about how users react to each version. You use software to track which\nversion causes users to do-what-you-want-them-to-do most often: which one results in the most\npurchases, or the most email signups, or whatever you're testing for. After the test is finished\nyou can update your website to use the \"winner\" of the test---the most effective content.\n\n\n**A/B testing** is when you run a test by creating multiple versions of a page, each with its\nown URL. When users try to access the original URL, you redirect some of them to each of the\nvariation URLs and then compare users' behaviour to see which page is most effective.\n\n\n**Multivariate testing** is when you use software to change differents parts of your website\non the fly. You can test changes to multiple parts of a page---say, the heading, a photo, and the\n'Add to Cart' button---and the software will show variations of each of these sections to users in\ndifferent combinations and then statistically analyze which variations are the most effective.\nOnly one URL is involved; the variations are inserted dynamically on the page.\n\n\nSo how does this affect what Googlebot sees on your site? Will serving different content variants\nchange how your site ranks? Below are some guidelines for running an effective test with minimal\nimpact on your site's search performance.\n\n- **No cloaking.** [Cloaking](/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies#cloaking)---showing one set of content to humans, and a different set to Googlebot---is against our [Webmaster Guidelines](/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies), whether you're running a test or not. Make sure that you're not deciding whether to serve the test, or which content variant to serve, based on user-agent. An example of this would be always serving the original content when you see the user-agent \"Googlebot.\" Remember that infringing our Guidelines can get your site demoted or removed from Google search results---probably not the desired outcome of your test.\n- **Use `rel=\"canonical\"`.** If you're running an A/B test with multiple URLs, you can use the [`rel=\"canonical\"`](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls) link attribute on all of your alternate URLs to indicate that the original URL is the preferred version. We recommend using `rel=\"canonical\"` rather than a `noindex` `meta` tag because it more closely matches your intent in this situation. Let's say you were testing variations of your home page; you don't want search engines to not index your home page, you just want them to understand that all the test URLs are close duplicates or variations on the original URL and should be grouped as such, with the original URL as the canonical. Using `noindex` rather than `rel=\"canonical\"` in such a situation can sometimes have unexpected effects (for example, if for some reason we choose one of the variant URLs as the canonical, the \"original\" URL might also get dropped from the index since it would get treated as a duplicate).\n- **Use `302` redirects, not `301`.** If you're running an A/B test that redirects users from the original URL to a variation URL, use a `302 (temporary)` redirect, not a `301 (permanent)` redirect. This tells search engines that this redirect is temporary---it will only be in place as long as you're running the experiment---and that they should keep the original URL in their index rather than replacing it with the target of the redirect (the test page). JavaScript-based redirects are also fine.\n- **Only run the experiment as long as necessary.** The amount of time required for a reliable test will vary depending on factors like your conversion rates, and how much traffic your website gets; a good testing tool should tell you when you've gathered enough data to draw a reliable conclusion. Once you've concluded the test, you should update your site with the desired content variation(s) and remove all elements of the test as soon as possible, such as alternate URLs or testing scripts and markup. If we discover a site running an experiment for an unnecessarily long time, we may interpret this as an attempt to deceive search engines and take action accordingly. This is especially true if you're serving one content variant to a large percentage of your users.\n\n\nThe recommendations above should result in your tests having little or no impact on your site in\nsearch results. However, depending on what types of content you're testing, it may not even matter\nmuch if Googlebot crawls or indexes some of your content variations while you're testing. Small\nchanges, such as the size, color, or placement of a button or image, or the text of your\n\"call to action\" (\"Add to cart\" vs. \"Buy now!\"), can have a surprising impact on users'\ninteractions with your webpage, but will often have little or no impact on that page's search\nresult snippet or ranking. In addition, if we crawl your site often enough to detect and index\nyour experiment, we'll probably index the eventual updates you make to your site fairly quickly\nafter you've concluded the experiment.\n\n\nTo learn more about website testing, check out\n[these articles](https://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=1745147)\non Content Experiments, our testing tool in\n[Google Analytics](https://www.google.com/analytics/).\nYou can also ask questions about website testing in the\n[Analytics Help Forum](https://support.google.com/analytics/community),\nor about search impact in the\n[Webmaster Help Forum](https://support.google.com/webmasters/community).\n\n\nPosted by\n[Susan Moskwa](/search/blog/authors/susan-moskwa),\nWebmaster Trends Analyst"]]