I’m just trying to make sense of multiple title tests and canonical data that goes to the feeds, socials, Google News, Google Feed, etc. The main title, which would go to these places, is going to get an unfair advantage.
It depends on the exact URL that’s being shared in Social Media. If the shared URL is https://example.com/tested-page/, then yes, the original title (and content) will be shared. If, on the other hand, a URL such as https://example.com/tested-page/?nab=1 is shared, then the first variation’s title (and content) will be shared. But you’ll be usually sharing the original URL so… yup, original content gets an “unfair advantage”, even though that’s an arguable claim.
Here’s the thing: in most tests, it doesn’t really matter what you share on social media. You’re interested in testing the page and seeing which variation converts the best. Therefore, the test doesn’t care about how people landed on the page; all it cares about is the ratio between “how many people has seen each variation (a view)” and “how many people was converted from each variation (a conversion)”.
This has an exception, though: headline tests. Headline tests are intended to test “which title, featured image, and excerpt attract more visitors”. So a “view” occurs whenever a user sees the title, featured image, and excerpt of one of your posts somewhere in your blog (for example, your in Blog listing or in a Related Posts widget), and a “conversion” occurs when the user actually accesses the tested post. In this particular case, you might be interested in knowing which variation attracts more visitors from social media (a “view”) to your blog (the “conversion”), but this is something that’s out of the scope of our plugin, as Nelio A/B Testing can’t know how many times a certain headline was shown to a visitor outside WordPress.
