Creating Tests

Creating a test has two stages. First you point RankNest at a page, and it fetches the page's current metadata and creates a draft. Then you fill in the draft in the experiment editor: choose the variable, write the variant, capture the Search Console baseline, and start the test once the change is live on the site.

Before you start, make sure the client has a domain set in Client Settings and a Search Console property assigned. See Google Search Console.

Create the draft

1. Open the client's SEO Testing view. Click Add experiment in the right pane (this pre-fills the selected page's URL), or click New Experiment on the empty state if the client has no tests yet.
2. In the New Experiment dialog, enter the Page URL. The URL must be on the client's domain.
3. Wait a moment. RankNest fetches the live page and shows a preview of its title, word count, internal link count, and page type. If the fetch fails you can still continue and fill in the details by hand in the next step.
4. Click Continue. RankNest creates the test as a draft, pulls the page's Search Console baseline, and opens the experiment editor.

Choose a variable

The Variables field records what the test changes. It drives which control and variant fields the editor shows: a Title test shows title fields, a Title & Desc test shows both, and free-form variables like Content Refresh show a notes field instead.

Built-in variables: Title, Description, H1, Title+H1, Title & Desc, Content Refresh, Section Rearrange, Section Takeaway, Internal Links, Featured Snippet, Schema Markup, URL Switch, and Other.

Choosing Other opens a Custom Variable Name field. Click Add & Use to save it. Custom variables you create appear in the dropdown for all your future tests.

Fill in control and variant

The editor shows two columns:

• Control: what is on the page now. RankNest pre-fills this from the page fetch. If the page has changed since, click Sync & Save Data from Site to re-fetch it (only possible while the test is a draft).
• Variant: what you plan to change it to. Fill in every field your chosen variable shows; the test can't start until the variant is complete.

Two helpers sit on the variant side:

• Generate AI Variant drafts variant copy for you, with length checks on titles and descriptions. Treat it as a starting point and edit before using.
• Use customer language appears when the client has scraped reviews in Message Mining. Turning it on blends phrasing from real customer reviews into the generated variant.

Also set:

• Hypothesis: the outcome you expect and why.
• End Date: leave blank to end automatically 30 days after the test starts, or pick a custom date.

Sync the baseline

The Control Performance section shows the page's rank, clicks, CTR, and impressions before the change. If these are empty, click Sync GSC to pull them from Search Console. Once synced, the button collapses to a Synced check mark. You can also click any metric to type a value in manually.

Start the test

1. Publish the change on the live site: update the title tag, meta description, or whatever your variable calls for. RankNest records the test; it does not edit your site.
2. Back in the editor, click Start Experiment. The status flips from Draft to Running and the test window begins.

You can also click Save Draft at any point to keep your progress without starting.

Add many pages at once

To test the same variable across a batch of pages instead of creating tests one by one, use Bulk import. It crawls the client's site and creates a draft for each page you select. See Managing Tests for the full flow.

Troubleshooting

"URL must be on [domain]." The page you entered is not on the client's site. Check the domain in Client Settings if it looks wrong.

"This client has no domain set." The New Experiment dialog needs a client domain to validate URLs against. Add one in client settings first.

"Couldn't auto-fetch page data." The page didn't respond or blocked the fetch. You can continue anyway and fill in the control fields manually.

Start Experiment is disabled. One or more variant fields are empty. Every field shown for your chosen variable must be filled before the test can start.

Related

• SEO Testing Overview
• Managing Tests
• Reading Results
• Message Mining