Using Target for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Testing

[aaronlng_92]

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone has used Target as a tool to test for search engine optimization changes. It seems fairly easy to update and move elements on a page template, but are you able to do any of the following:

1. Test changing the title and meta description of a page (meta tags in the header). 
2. Are you able to split a certain set of pages in half (i.e. split category pages, or product pages)? 
3. Are changes picked up by the Googlebot?

I guess I'm wondering if Adobe Target can perform similarly to another service that is out there called Searchpilot, or if I need to look elsewhere to perform this type of testing. 

[alexbishop]

Yes, you can do this:
i) there is a useful page on Exp League that gives some things to think about when considering A/B testing in an SEO context. 
ii) yes, typically you would take one content section/category page etc and then look for average rankings, with the idea of getting two samples that have similar distributions of rankings that could be A/B tested
iii) yes, this Google article here is pretty useful in terms of understanding potential impact/effects