I was recently reading a post about Google Website Optimizer and how they're changing the meaning of optimization. Anil Batra did a great job of looking at what optimization is and what it's commonly referred to, namely organic search optimization or SEO. He also explained multivariate testing as well and how it is being referred to as website optimization by google. Having a background in both SEO and multivariate testing I think Google is definitely creating unnecessary confusion amongst analysts who know SEO and multivariate testing...even though Google was probably trying to make it easy for people who don't know about either.

1. They're breaking existing nomenclature in the industry by naming a multivariate testing tool an optimizer.

2. While multivariate testing strives to optimize a certain conversion event by finding the optimal web page, it harly optimizes a whole website at once...unless you sell one product or have one objective and you have 1-2 pages in your site. Therefore using website in the name s equally erroneous.

I think it's better to stay within the accepted nomenclature since their product category is not new or challenging conventions, only challenging price points.

Google is clearly trying to expand their reach in the space by using a simple name since few people are familiar with multivariate testing. And I also assume there is some hidden agenda for google to dissuade customers from SEO since it makes more room for paid search...but I always assume google has an evil plot brewing.