Google Website Optimizer Steps Out Of The AdWords Box: Open To All Users & Urchin 6.0 Comes Out Of Beta

Google has announced that AdWords is no longer a requirement for Website Optimizer. In fact, you can now go to google.com/websiteoptimizer and register for free to use Website Optimizer, even if you do not have an AdWords account.

Now, you can use Website Optimizer to not just A/B test your AdWords landing pages, but also test your Yahoo landing pages, your banner landing pages, and different elements throughout your web site to improve conversions and desired actions from your users.

If you already use Website Optimizer within your AdWords account, you can continue to do so. The data and tool will remain in your AdWords account and can continue to be used there for the foreseeable future. The new Website Optimizer will have its own user interface but will function a lot like the old Website Optimizer.

In addition, Google has launched a blog for Website Optimizer named the Website Optimizer Blog. The blog will contain “up-to-date product news, industry insights, testing strategies, and other educational information from the Google Website Optimizer team and our partners,” said Google.

Google Website Optimizer is available in 27 languages including Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (Australia, UK & U.S.), Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil & Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, and Turkish.

Update: In other Google web tracking news, Google updated us that Urchin 6 is now out of beta. Urchin is the paid version of Google Analytics and runs directly on your own server. Also, Actual Metrics is offering free demonstrations of Urchin 6 if you are interested.