I host a community wiki related to geocaching. When looking at the
visitor statistics, I notice that quite a lot of readers end up at the
front page, never to be seen again. The front page is basically a list
of links to various articles, and I have the feeling that its UX
rating is very low.
I have som ideas for alternative layouts, but before jumping into a
radical change, I'd like to do some split testing, to see if an
alternative layout can direct the casual visitor in the direct the
casual visitor in the direction of at least one other article.
I have a vague notion that such a test can be implemented with a
scribunto macro, that alternates between different "Main Page"
templates. The traffic volume is low enough that I have no caching in
front of the wiki, so the split part should be
straightforward. However, I'm a bit uncertain about how to capture the
actual version presented to the user. Also, I'm a bit worried about
how search engines will react to a page that changes randomly.
So I'm seeking input from others that have had similar considerations:
* How to implement the actual split.
* How to record the version presented to the user. (I use piwik for
analysis)
* How to ensure that search engine crawlers see the same page for the
duration of the split testing.
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/Wegge
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