A thread at HackerNews has Google’s Matt Cutts defending itself over accusations that a split A/B test has allegedly caused Google to delist a site from the search engine.

The site claimed that when it added a split test, Google issued a warning that the site has been compromised and removed the site from the index. The truth is, the split test had nothing to do with it – the site was indeed compromised and because of that, Google had to secure the search results and remove the site from the index.

Google’s Matt Cutts over the weekend replied to the thread saying:

After more questions, Cutts even gave more details:

So A/B or split testing or other forms of testing web sites is okay by Google as long as you don’t test GoogleBot or don’t treat GoogleBot differently.

Forum discussion at HackerNews.

Image credit to ShutterStock for testing images