We’ve been previewing some new features in Google Website Optimizer and are now happy to be able to tell you about three great improvements.

Here’s a screenshot of an experiment we have in progress with the new report features showng:

1. Remove unwanted combinations
You can now selectively remove variations or combinations from a Google Website Optimizer experiment that is in progress. This is a helpful feature I’ve been asking for from the beginning, but it’s also going to be dangerous for those inexperienced in testing and must be used carefully.

At some point with virtually every client, usually on the first experiment, we have to have a conversation about when to make decisions about ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ variations. It’s natural to try to make decisions early when you see the red and green bars begin to grow. It takes great discipline not to panic when one variation is tracking at a negative conversion rate and you can quickly calculate how much that could be costing the business.

But, just like a good investment advisor, this is where we have to coach our clients to be rational. You do not know which combination is going to win until we have achieved statistical significance. I’ve lost count of how many experiments completely reverse results before achieving a surprising finish.

That is why I also think the Google Website Optimizer team was wise to roll out the second feature at the same time.

2. Enhanced reports
The red and green bars have been replaced with yellow when the confidence level is low. It’s amazing how much colors influence decision-making (which we’ve proven through many conversion optimization tests) and this change will help calm nervous testers now that the big red bars aren’t glaring back at us early in a test.

3. Offline validation option for A/B tests
In many cases the Website Optimizer script can’t be validated online and the offline validation option for Multivariate tests is a feature we use often. It’s a welcome addition to have this feature available for A/B testing for beginners, but until it’s easy to copy A/B experiments and re-start them without changing the Control page html we’ll continue using the Advanced A/B/n method.

You can get more detail on the Google Website Optimizer blog. And if you haven’t taken Website Optimizer for a spin yet, what are you waiting for? It’s free!

Note: If you’ve been considering increasing your conversion rates with Google Website Optimizer but don’t know where to start or have hit technical challenges, our conversion optimization experts would be happy to help.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under google website optimizer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.