Google’s wonderfully free Website Optimizer tool just got a little better. Apparently, they’ve heard enough of us complaining about the problems which existed with the cookie life. Previously this was only available on a session basis. So, no matter how long you set the cookie for, it would expire or disappear with the closure of a browser or tab. In theory, the session could last with a refresh for up to the amount of time specified in the _utimeout function of the script which was placed on the cookie.

As of 7pm, 1 November 2007, this cookie is now set for a specified life of up to 2 years across sessions. Specificity regarding the creation date of the experiment is a consideration. About that Google stated:

“Experiments created prior to October 30, 2007 won’t use these new
cookies — this will include follow-up experiments and copied
experiments created after October 30 that are based on original
experiments that were created prior to October 30. For example, if you
created an original experiment on October 10th 2007, then created a
follow-up experiment based on the original on November 10th, 2007,
that follow-up would not use 2-year cookies. “

You can check out the rest of the details if you want to by clicking into their WebEx Playback here. The original release of this information is also available through the Google Website Optimizer BETA forum.

As always, I love to talk about these types of things. If anyone has any questions or comments about how to deal with GWO, or problems with specific testing scenarios, please feel free to drop a line. Please also remember to sift through some of the testing “tagged” posts if you need any help getting some more advanced testing done. I previously posted a great deal about Taguchi Multivariate Tests, conversion proxies, and cookie manipulation on my old blog. I’ll be migrating parsed versions of these very soon.