FAQs

What do the search engines think of split testing?

Split testing with SearchPilot is a completely legitimate marketing activity. It causes no problems with search engines because:

• Every visitor to any given page is served the exact same HTML - whether the visitor is a human or a search engine spider
• Changes are made “server side” by our proxy technology and so are the same as any change you made in your CMS or code (though we can also make Javascript changes - see below)
• Because SearchPilot is deployed behind a CDN, it’s completely transparent to all human and robot visitors
• Deploying SearchPilot if you don’t already have a CDN in place looks exactly like deploying a CDN - just a change of DNS which search engines are used to seeing all the time

As with most SEO activity and any CMS platform, it is possible to make changes which search engines may consider manipulative. We encourage you to practice sustainable practices.

Will this work with my CMS?

Yes, please see our platform independence page for details about how and why SearchPilot can work with all platforms.

Can I use this on my eCommerce site?

Yes. SearchPilot is a PCI compliant platform, and will work with encrypted HTTPS sites. For more details we have a page about using the platform on secure and ecommerce sites.

What sort of impact will this have on my site speed?

Most pages won’t be affected. Those pages that are affected will typically take an additional 30-50ms, which is imperceptible to users. Furthermore, using SearchPilot it is often possible to make optimizations that actually speed up a site. We have a page with more detail about speed and performance.

Where will this sit in my server layout?

SearchPilot sits between the CDN and your servers, so deployment is a simple configuration change at your CDN.

Will this work with my CDN?

Yes. The platform is designed to work with all CDNs. We have customers who use SearchPilot with Fastly, CloudFlare, Akamai, Verizon Edgecast, Amazon CloudFront & Incapsula.

Can I deploy SearchPilot just for one folder on my site?

SearchPilot is deployed at the sub-domain level and can handle all traffic for the whole subdomain. However, some clients configure their CDNs to deploy only traffic to a selection sub-folders. Get in touch if you’d like to discuss the possibilities for your site.

What kind of changes can I make with SearchPilot?

By sitting as a proxy, SearchPilot can in principle make any change to the HTML or HTTP headers of any page on your site. It is designed to make rules-based changes to many pages at once across large site sections - particularly when these are to be deployed as split tests.

SearchPilot also allows you to define variables that pull information from one part of the page for inclusion in another - for example for adding structured mark-up into a page.

My website is fully Javascript with no server side HTML, can I still use SearchPilot?

Yes, normally you can do so. We have a Javascript framework that is capable of applying changes client side in a user’s browser. It does this in a framework agnostic fashion.