Many in the digital community were shocked this week to hear Google will sunset its popular A/B testing platform. Already a widely unpopular decision, users have been advised to start looking for alternative tools for web page testing.
What Is Google Optimize?
Although Google Optimize isn’t that old (it was launched five years ago) it’s a popular platform that enables web developers to perform A/B testing and improve landing pages. Well-liked because of how user-friendly it is, specialists use the tool to improve user experience and increase conversion rates. Web page experiments like this help SEOs decrease website bounce rates and encourage website visitors to perform actions such as downloading a piece of content, making a purchase, or filling out a contact form.
But, that’s all set to change as this week Google announced they would be shutting down the tool on September 30th. The plan is to integrate A/B testing tools into Google Analytics 4 but it’s already clear that won’t happen before Google Optimize has gone.
Everyone also let out a collection groan at the thought of anything else being incorporated into GA4…the most user-unfriendly tool in existence 😉
Anyway, if you use Google Optimize, your data won’t be available once the tool is closed down, you have plenty of time yet to download your data.
However, now is a good time to think about alternative platforms, especially if you heavily rely on Google Optimize.
Google Optimize Alternatives?
Ah…we’re in the same boat as many others that have been relying on Google Optimise…we got used to how easy it was to use and most importantly, it was FREE!
Hit us up if you have any recommendations…there are plenty of articles out there detailing alternatives such as this, and HubSpot have a fairly recent guide here. Optimizely is one tool that makes the shortlist of everybody’s favourite tools.
It’s difficult to compare a lot of the tools because a lot have their own USPs, however, most will do the basics and then it looks like it’s a case of choosing what additional features you need.
One thing is for certain though, it’s difficult to find anything decent and free to use (LOL we’re freeloaders), so looks like paid subscriptions are the way to go.
