You can test web site functionality, such as search or merchandising capabilities, to see how they perform. Testing these technologies before incorporating them into your web sites can save investment costs and IT resources.

For example, a programmer has created a product affinity engine that can make product recommendations based on other people’s purchase habits. She wants to prove that the content that is served by her engine will generate more sales than the current process of fixed content (related products). The programmer decides to create a new product template that incorporates her recommendations in the ‘related product’ slots. She creates a two-day test that displays the new template to 50% of the site’s visitors and the old template to 50% of the site’s visitors.

See Testing Product Templates for details on setting up this type of test.