What is a Redirect test?A Redirect test is a type a type of A/B test which uses two distinct pages and tests their effectiveness against each other. In this case, two variants are identified by two URL paths. Instead of testing two versions of the same web page, you test two different pages against each other. Tests of this kind are useful when you want to see how two very different landing pages perform, or you’re testing a complete redesign of a page.
Create a Redirect experiment in Google OptimizeYou’ll need:• Two web pages that share the same objective, created on your WordPress site – eg, two versions of a blog post
o Version/Variant 1: Original Page
o Version/Variant 2: Redirect Page
• Make sure you’ve installed the Google Optimize code snippet on both the original and redirect pages
• Important: Search engines will notice if you try to post duplicate content on your site. Make sure your meta tags differ significantly between the two posts, to avoid a penalty
Steps to create the Redirect experiment1. Go to your Google Optimize account
2. Click on the experiment link on the Accounts page
3. Click the Create Experiment button on the Experiment tab
Create an experiment for the Redirect test
4. Add a suitable name on the
Name your experiment field on the Create experiment side pop-up menu
5. Enter the URL of the page you want to test
6. Select the experiment type as
Redirect test
7. Finally, click the
Create button on top-right corner of the page. You’ll be sent to the Details page
Create a Variant for the experiment1. Click +
New Variant link on the Variant section of the Details page
2. Enter a Variant name and Redirect destination (e.g. /variant1.html) in the relevant fields
3. Click the Add button in the top-right corner
Create Objectives for the experimentObjectives are metrics you can use to judge the success or failure of your experiment. There are several Objective types within Google Optimize, which include page views, session durations and bounces. If you’ve connected your Google Optimize account with your Google Analytics account, you can test against the custom goals you’ve created in Analytics. Since the default objectives are limited, it’s better to set up your own custom goals.
1. Make sure you’re connected your Google Analytics account via the Link Properties step and have created any goals in Google Analytics
2. Select a Primary objective from the drop-down menu (i.e, Bounces)
Bounce rate’ refers to the percentage of visitors who visit your website but leave without browsing to anything, or performing any action on the page
Note: You can select one primary objective and two secondary objectives per experiment. Make sure you’ve chosen all the relevant objectives upfront, since you can’t retrospectively change these objectives, in the free version at least
3. Click the +
Add An Objective button to add a secondary objective
4. Add a Description and hypothesis for your Objectives and click Save in the top-right corner
Adding Targeting for the experimentTargeting focuses on customizing the percentage of users who are participating on each variant of your test, as well as the weighting of visitors depending on each target.
1. Go to the Targeting tab under the Configuration section
2. Edit the Percentage of visitors to target and the Weighting of visitors to target fields
3. Determine when the experiment is shown by using the
When section controls
4. Click the edit icon on the
Evaluate on page load field, and connect a page event to evaluate using the
Evaluate on drop- down menu
5. Add any additional conditions, according to the requirements of your test
More information: Learn more about
Targeting rules6. Then click
the Start Experiment button to initiate the experiment
Now your experiment is up and running. It will take at least 24 hours for data to begin to accumulate; this period could be longer if your traffic is lower. Go to the Reporting section to see how your variants compare: