A/B Testing and NoIndex, NoFollow

[J-Spider]

When running A/B testing in AdWords is it important to use "NoIndex, NoFollow" meta tags if the 2 pages you are using have very similar content? Thoughts?

And this also applies to PPC landing pages in general - Is it a good idea to "NoIndex, NoFollow" in general?

Thanks for your feedback,

[prcox]

I have often wondered the same thing. I am assuming If google can not read content on your page(s) then would you not have a lower quality score which would drop the position of your ad? Since your ad would drop wouldn't you recieve less clicks and false information when testing pages?

[incrediblehelp]

Well are you using Google Website Optimizer? They will bucket test the traffic for you as far as I know.

[MichaelDavid]

I do not know how definitive this statement is, but its worth considering. Having the nofollow, noindex on landing pages could be harmful, as it seems it would prevent the adwords bot from crawling your pages for quality scoring, thus giving you a worst or null quality score which would increase your bid rate. I just wanted to note that. I hope it helps.