Google Launches Website Optimizer

Rockgod writes "Google Analytics Senior Manager Brett Crosby unveiled the tool, called Google Website Optimizer, this morning at the eMetrics summit in Washington D.C. If you find web site traffic heat maps like CrazyEgg, ClickDensity or Google Analytics' own heat map interesting, this looks like the next generation of that kind of tool. If Google's Website Optimizer can score high on usability, I expect it to be a big hit with small and medium size website publishers."

That's great and all...

... but what is it?

Re:That's great and all...

It supposedly can determine which home pages make the greatest impression on users. I agree with you, though, that this should have been included in the summary, which is meaningless.

"algorithm" ..or google users?

I'm somewhat unclear on this, and I watched 80% of the flash demo linked above before getting insanely bored (mostly due to the pace) and letting my ADHD take over. From what I can tell, they are implying that this is not an algorithm doing the "checking" of your web site, but rather human editors/users. The flash demo mentions testing optimization of images as well, which I believe wouldn't be something easily automated through an algorithm (at least not easily automated to derive USEFUL results). However, i'm a bit confused because they aren't very specific as to who or what will be testing your site for clickthru/etc. At some point I started to think "oh, okay, google editors/volunteers will be testing it" (much like the google image labeler [google.com] beta linked from /. a few weeks ago).. and then i started to suspect they are actually just using the code to run multiple "live" versions of your site and let NORMAL google users view them in a random distribution and then see which ones stay (and buy) and for how long etc. But maybe I just misunderstood and got distracted 5 seconds before they explained this haha. Anyone with the answer?

If it really is the latter method, I am sure it would work for some web sites, but I know for our company's site, we can only ever display one version of our content, as any minor changes at all tend to draw a lot of industry attention (i.e. "hey what are these guys up to.. their site updated.. OMG is the next big product about to drop, blah blah").. so I hope that out of the three methods, it's either an algorithm, or a small subset of google trustees/volunteers. But then again, our industry (digital cinema) is a typical and I'm sure no matter which method, this will work great for mom & pop selling Pokemon trading cards or whatever.

Re:"algorithm" ..or google users?

No the way it works is that you identify parts of a page that you want to experiment with with tags, include a javascript library on it and a conversion page, and then tell google what variations on the tagged item (alternate headlines for example) you want to test.

When someone goes to that page, google will randomly select one of your alternate headlines and replace the original one with it. It'll then check if that person buys something (or subscribes or whatever).

It then gives you a report of which variations lead to the most conversions.

Re:That's great and all...

It's a tool for Adwords optimization - you give the application some blocks of your page, and several variations of the content for them, and then a percentage of your visitors get each version.

This allows you to try out different sets of content, and see which one leads to the most conversions (software downloads, sales, enquiries etc.), and hopefully save some money at the same time. We have several clients you are spending over £1000/month on Adwords, and it really pays to be able to see what works.

Enhancing your ability to get ads

Or enhancing advertisers' ability to get your eyeballs.

Either way, it's not for us.

Re:Enhancing your ability to get ads

actually, google analytics does help you. Website statistics help the web master know what visitors do and do not want to see. Allowing google analytics to track your anonymous movement through a site ultimately leads to a more fulfilling user experience.

At my job, I am rather far removed from the finances, yet I am supposed to decide what and how to market. Analytics lets me do that by tracking what sells, when it sells, etc.

Does it help Google? Of course. But it also helps the webmaster of the sites you visit to create sites you want to see.

Re:Enhancing your ability to get ads

I agree google analytics is helpful. However, it also increased my page load times by a long shot, so it had to be removed. It simply doesn't serve fast enough.

Did you try putting the Javascript somewhere other than the <head>? Obviously that's the recommended place, but in fact most of the functionality still works if you bury the Javascript down as close to </body> as it will go, and that should have less effect on the effective[1] page load time.

Rich.

[1] By "effective" I mean the time until the browser can render the page for the user, rather than the total load time.

Optimising Slashdot

This'll be great, I can analyse Slashdot and post the results in the comments section along with some helpful suggestions, +5 Funny here I come!

*Clicks link*

*Clicks Sign up*

*Starts filling in form*

*Notices that signing up to Ad Words is required*

*Notices that adding a phone number is required*

*Gives up and decides to just post the results of W3C's HTML Validation Service instead*

Re:Optimising Slashdot

Hilarious!

Now... did you actually look at the site? It's nothing to do with HTML validation, and therefore has nothing whatsoever to do with the W3C's HTML Validation Service. :-P

Re:Optimising Slashdot

Why was the parent marked "Off Topic"? The comment is absolutely right - this service has nothing whatsoever to do with HTML validation. It's a technique for getting more sales on your site by testing different combinations of headings / content in adverts to find out what works best.

Rich.

Re:Optimising Slashdot

The original poster's joke was probably that Slashdot used to block the W3C validator. It does not anymore, however.

Re:Optimising Slashdot

Well, it seems that this is a tool for AdWords users. The demo says "Google AdWords Website Optimization" and the sign-up thing reads:

We're currently accepting sign-ups from AdWords Advertisers who are interested in participating in this beta test. We may not be able to guarantee invitations to everyone, but will be working hard to make this tool generally available to all AdWords customers in the near future.

The front-page is misleading though, as it doesn't state anything about AdWords.

Yes..

..but is it beta?

This may be useful

I think this is cool. Google Adwords is somewhat of a statistical pain in the butt. I've spent hours upon hours of my life analyzing keywords, click rates, etc. for pushing more traffic to various sites on the web. If this tool eases that pain, even just a little, I say it is a good thing. Google needs us to succeed with AdWords as much as we want to succeed.

Mixed Feelings

Google giving advice is always going to help two sets of people - those who already have websites and want to optimise them, and those who are attempting to create websites to rank highly. If we look at why people creating websites usually want to get them to rank highly google the reasons are primarily monetary, which means that this tool is mainly giving advice to those who are trying to displace older (and possibly better sites). Say I have site A. which is dedicated to mountain biking news and has been running since 1997 with messageboards, news etc and hasn't been optimised for the best google rankings and we have Site B. which was created 3 months ago and uses RSS syndication to just serve up content from other sites and monetising it with something like adsense is the main point, then which should really rank higher in Google? I'm thinking A because it is more of a legitimate site.

I think there is a point where trying to rank highly in Google is OK for wanting to growth in your site, but if Google continue to give out such tools then surely people will start producing sites that match exactly what it wants to see in order to get traffic. I'm starting to think that it shouldn't be sites that have to be optimised for Google to rank them highly, but Google to be optimised to pick up the best sites for each search term instead of landing pages or shells that are just there for advertising revenue.

In other news...

Google's new website optimizer suddenly quits after being run against MySpace [myspace.com]. It's been reported the optimizer was later heard weeping, as well as muttering "the horror."

If google really want to optimize things..

.. how about they send some kind of robot around their search listings, to delist any page that is little more links to another page. I've been looking for something and found links to a site that's basically links, which links to another site made up of links etc..

GA heat maps?

Since when did Google Analytics have heat maps?

Out of curiousity I signed up

I got a bogus AdWords account, just never added billing info. I have considered trying AdWords and paying for it with my AdSense money, they should have that as a payment option, to just take it from AdSense... For web site analysis I use WebCEO anyway, but I can't help but want to check out a new tool, overall, I love the direction Google is going, I use Google Office, just used their photo album thing to show friends vacation pics, use analytics for traffic analysis...it's cool stuff.

Perhaps they should optimize their service?

From my firefox browser, after clicking on the demo, I was unable to open the "Sample reports" and "Documentation" links.
Closing the "demo" tab allowed one of the other links to be opened.
Is this optimal design?

... but what is it

> ..but what is it?

Classic "look at the monkey tactics" making you believe you get your money's worth from Adwords - very rarely true in my experience. What they really need is a means of stopping fraudulent clicks by 'Google Network' advertisers.

It's for marketer's landing pages

This tool is most helpful for companies who buy a lot of AdWords and route the the clicks to optimized "landing pages" that present a focused marketing pitch. From what I've seen, the Optimizer's real value is to help these AdWords buyers figure out which of their landing pages is producing the best performance in routing readers to their product pages. Getting that kind of data in a quick, user-friendly fashion will have value to these folks.

the Real website optimizer

And the winner is: w3.org [w3.org]. The CSS section [w3.org] is probably the most useful part of it, but the whole thing is heartily recommended. To test you level of optimization there is an automated tool for HTML markup [w3.org] as well as one for CSS [w3.org].

Maybe it's a UK thing....

But I spat out my coffee when it said "Make this bike yours" with a picture of a woman...

Google Launches Website Optimizer

Google will soon be more of a problem to web users than help. Here is how my bitter taste with Google became sour. We share a computer at home and my sister and parents do not change the settings (on shared PC) much. While I enabled Javascript the other day, she had to call me on cellphone at work since no web pages were loading (mozilla). I drove back and did a check. Something to do with google syndication or analytics. This machine is clean of spyware. So I reset the browser and all was okay again. The Telcos were right. AT&T was right demanding that Google pay for bandwidth. I thought AT&T was playing politics demanding fees from google. I have since changed my opinion. Google will make the net crawl.