With the release of a new API, announced today, Google is allowing site owners to conduct multivariate and A/B testing from their own platforms. Part of Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer (GWO) is a free tool that "handles splitting a website's traffic, serving different variations and crunching the numbers to find statistical significance." For site owners, these minute variations can widen conversion funnels and lead to exponentially greater engagement and profit if changes are executed correctly.

According to a post by Googlers Gary Kačmarčík and Erika Rice Scherpelz, "Creating experiments with Website Optimizer usually involves a lot of back and forth between your website and the Website Optimizer interface. Using the API, you can integrate Website Optimizer into your platform. In short, you can create and launch experiments from whatever tool you use to edit your site."

The GWO API does not provide access to testing results. To see the experiment results, users must visit the experiment report page.

In addition to simplifying the site optimization process, the API might also make it simpler for companies to conduct in-house testing, reducing both the cost and time of optimization. Site owners and others can register for the GWO API webinar, which will take place on October 28th at 10 a.m. PDT. During the webinar, Website Optimizer engineers will walk users through how the API works, and two platforms that have already integrated GWO using the API will demonstrate their products.

In addition to its free service, Pingdom also offers a basic account for $9.95 per month, which allows users to monitor up to 5 sites. The company also offers a business account for $39.95 per month, which can check up to 30 sites. The basic account also comes with 20 free SMS alerts, while business account users can receive up to 200 alerts by text message.