Genetic A/B Testing with JavaScript

http://ejohn.org/blog/genetic-ab-testing-with-javascript/

by jeresig • 18 years ago

46 14 18 years ago

FiReaNG3L4• 18 years ago

As I said in the other thread, if we somehow (javascript?) could get click data on Google Adsense ads with its parameters (colors, size), we could genetically optimize them, which would be tremendously profitable.

drusenko• 18 years ago

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/19/yieldbuild-will-try-to-...

they seem to do what you're talking about with adsense

FiReaNG3L4• 18 years ago

Cool nice find! At least it shows that it's possible :) It's free to try for 30 days, i'll give it a spin - after that they ask for 3%, which doesn't seem too bad, but is still quite a bit of money - the question is, will their service bring me more than that? Probably, let's see!

Still hoping for an open-source version though. I find it strange that Google itself doesn't allow this, they would win more money, too.

vizard• 18 years ago

Offtopic : I am frustrated with people ignoring no free lunch theorem and trying to use GAs everywhere.

icky2• 18 years ago

> Offtopic : I am frustrated with people ignoring no free lunch theorem and trying to use GAs everywhere.

GAs don't violate No Free Lunch. After all, you're a genetic algorithm...

yters2• 18 years ago

That isn't what he's saying. He thinks people should focus more on the problem domain rather than just use GAs indiscriminately.

yters2• 18 years ago

The NFLT mainly applies across all functions. So, I don't see a prima facie reason that there can't be a best overall algorithm for the problems we tend to encounter, since these are an infinitely small subset of all possible problems and likely share common characteristics.

In fact, to be a total contrarian, I suspect intelligent design theory can provide such a heuristic for all real world problem domains. The irony is thick indeed.

sh1mmer2• 18 years ago

I love the idea! I think that implementing all the content in HTML and then selecting it in Javascript though is a horrible idea for a number of reasons. Performance and accessibility would be my top two. Maintainability would be a close third.

tjpick• 18 years ago

you're absolutely right but it'd be straightforward to implement the technique server side to fix those problems.

sh1mmer2• 18 years ago

I agree. I think this could make a really interesting project in PHP/Python/Rails/etc

Genetic A/B Testing with JavaScript

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