There are 5 steps required to split test your HTML pages using The Copysplitter. This page provides detailed instructions for the process.
These instructions do not include the steps required to upload, download, update, or delete files on your web server. There are too many ways for this to be done, and instructions for those tasks are beyond the scope of this document.
By the time you have finished these instructions you should be able to install and use The Copysplitter to begin split testing your HTML copy right away.
At this time The Copysplitter is available for free from our site at this link. You are welcome to download and use the script, as well as to modify it for your own use. We ask that you do not redisctribute our free scripts, but link to our site instead. Thank You!
The download is a .zip file, which contains the script, as well as 2 sample files which demonstrate the usage of The Copysplitter. If you wish you can upload these files to your server along with the script, and use them to make sure that everything is working correctly on your server.
The .zip file you download may contain other files as well depending on the version of the script being downloaded and the time of your download.
You can upload The Copysplitter to your web server using your normal tools and procedures. The script file is simply a plain text file with the file extension ".php" and the sample copy files are normal HTML files.
What you see will depend on the tools you are using but after you have uploaded the script and demo files to your server the directory contents should look something like this:
If you execute the script without uploading the sample files or your test files to the server the script should display an error message which looks like this:.
The Copysplitter was developed on an Linux/Apache web server using PHP 5.2.x. The script does not require any database or configuration for use.
This script should be able to run on any PHP 5.x or 4.x capable web server if the local permissions allow writing to disk. Since there is no requirement for a database, you can use this script on nearly any PHP enabled web server.
When you are ready to split-test your HTML files you need to name the two files that you plan to test with the names "copy1.htm" and "copy2.htm". Upload the two files to the server and place them in the same directory with The Copysplitter. Replace the demo copy files if necessary.
If you want to use The Copysplitter to record statistics on clickthroughs from your HTML files, you need to modify the HTML hyperlinks to use The Copysplitter's script file as a redirector. In this way the script can determine which link a user clicked on using identifiers you add to the link.
To use The Copysplitter as a redirector your modify your HTML links by making the script file the target of the link, and adding the following parameters to the link:
Whenever a user's browser requests the script using a parameter of "url", the script will attempt to redirect the user's browser to the contents of the url GET variable.
The script makes a note of the request and records the time, the IP address from which the request was made, the browser in use, and the complete request URI (This is the part of the URL after the server name) used to access the script.
The request URI value will also include any other parameters or identifying values you choose to add to the link. You can add a unique code such as "&L1" or "&L2" to your links and The Copysplitter's reporting panel will use this difference to report exactly which link a user selected.
The Copysplitter does not pass these parameters on to the page or script at the destination URL. If you need to pass a tracking ID or other value to the destination URL while using The Copysplitter as a redirector make sure that you include this value as part of the "url" parameter you provide in the original hyperlink.
The Copysplitter redirects traffic using a "link-juice-friendly" HTTP 301 redirect. It does not execute any javascript, the statistics are recorded and the 301 header is sent directly from your server.
If you are already using third party analytics or another tool to track clickthroughs from your pages, there is no need for you to modify your hyperlinks while split testing your HTML files using this script.
If I could tell you how to do this, I would be a millionaire :)
On a more serious note, after a few people have visited the script, the list of files in the script's directory on your server should look something like this:
If you have disabled statistics the script will not create a the two files named "pageviews" and "clickthroughs", which are used to keep records of traffic coming into and going out of the script. If you are tracking pageviews but not using The Copysplitter's redirector to track your links the script will not create any "clickthroughs" file.
The "lastcopy" file is used to record the last copy file that the script displayed so that the script can split pageviews evenly in low-to-moderate traffic conditions. If you are experiencing high traffic (more than one visitor to The Copysplitter per second) you should consider using the random copy feature of The Copysplitter.
Enabling the random copy feature can increase performance as it does not require the script to perform a disk read and write operation for each page load. If you feel that you will receive sufficient visits to each page to meet your needs with attempting to split the traffic at an exact 50/50 ratio you can enable this feature.
Enabling the random copy feature can increase performance as it does not require the script to perform a disk read and write operation for each page load. If you feel that you will receive sufficient visits to each page to meet your needs with attempting to split the traffic at an exact 50/50 ratio you can enable this feature.
The Copysplitter will continue to track pageviews while the random copy feature is enabled. You can learn more about enabling this feature in the "Advanced Usage" section at the end of this document.
This is the most important part of the process (Ok except for step 4...). The Copysplitter's reporting panel can be reached by adding query "?stats=please" to the end of the script's URL. Depending on your browser and where you uploaded the script, your address bar should say something like this:
This query informs the script that you want to view the statistics and instead of seeing one of the files you are split testing you will be shown the statistics gathered by the script during testing.
The second set of statistics is a listing of clickthroughs populated each time a user clicks on a link that uses The Copysplitter as a redirector.
If you are not using the redirector functionality (or no users have clicked through yet) you will see something like this:
Once the redirector has recorded a couple of clickthroughs you will see something that looks more like this:
The exact request URIs you see displayed will depend on where you have uploaded the script to, as well as the URLs and tracking codes in your links.
