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Here is a bookmarklet you can use to browse or spy on an Optimizely customer's experiments!
javascript:window.jQuery && jQuery.getScript("//dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ci08683w66ud4s0/optimizelyspytool.js");
(highlight and drag this to your bookmark bar on your browser .. the older version broke on certain browser due to MIME type)
Since all of their experiment code is made publicly available in the javascript library, rather than server-side decisioning, it's all waiting to be browsed.
List of Optimizely customers: https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=cdn.optimizely.com/js/searchPage=1/sort=pop
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/25obly/optimizely_is_vulnerable_to_spies/
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Looks like Optimizely has now partially fixed this (June 5th, 2014): http://growthhackers.com/3-new-optimizely-settings-to-give-you-more-control/
Anuj Adhiya
This is crazy.
I know which sites have optimizely code, and for the people that name their experiments well, which ones they've set up and which one's are live!
Morgan Brown
Wow, if you use BuiltWith or similar you can simply go down the list. Crazy.
Dylan La Com
From Nerdydata
https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=https://cdn.optimizely.com/js//searchPage=1/sort=pop
chad smith
https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=cdn.optimizely.com/js/searchPage=1/sort=pop
Here's a better way to find optimizely code.
Dylan La Com
Good call on dropping the protocol
Chris Sanfilippo
I use Ghostly and BuiltWith, it automatically displays the scripts running on any web page. It's very useful. https://www.ghostery.com/en/
Kyle Newsam
Great find although it looks like it'll be short lived. Optimizely are working on a fix to allow customers to mask their experiment information.
http://blog.optimizely.com/2014/06/03/updates-to-optimizely-experiments-and-the-optimizely-javascript-library/
Karolis Dzeja
The inflation of the library size is scary. Why does Optimizely keep all this data on the script? On some sites the library payload balloons to over 1mb. That's going to effect performance.
ben hoffman
@Karolis - yeah this is a known problem. This is why they recommend you always archive your experiments once they are completed.
Shana Carp
I wonder if I can do this on a massive scale
Depesh Mandalia
Very cool - if you wanted the whole list perhaps you could write a Google Docs script to scrape the data. You'd feed in https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=cdn.optimizely.com/js/searchPage=1/sort=pop and then pull out the xpath //td/a to grab the URL... could be expanded to any software provider that includes a signature piece of code like this
Dylan La Com
Holy moly this is epic!
Gwen Lexi
Yes, thanks for posting!
Also, thanks for pointing out nerdydata.com !!!
This will be great for our lead-gen and SEO teams.
Spencer Montgomery
Wow, this is super epic indeed!
Thanks for sharing this Anuj!
Nate Desmond
WOW!
Anuj, this is amazing!
ben hoffman
WOOOOOWWW super cool! awesome find.
if a company doesn't name their experiments well, it's a bit of a search to find the exact experiment (unless it's obvious of course).
don't mean to hijack the thread but nerdydata is also really cool…. although I question the effectiveness (I typed in GH's google analytics code and it showed 0 results).
Shana Carp
And not working for me..... :(
chad smith
The bookmark link was updated. Try again, works for me!
Joona Tuunanen
Wow. Just wow. This is a really great find.
Also, thanks for the NerdyData intro, didn't know about that before.
Tim Elfelt
Amazing! Thanks for sharing
Tom Masiero
I dig that this info is out there. But the big question is "So What"?
What are growth hackers going to do with it.. where is the actionable information and how does it help us?
chad smith
One could get insight into competitors' testing practices, see if they're testing new price points, new creative, new promotions.
If you look closely in Optimizely's account, there's a hidden gem I just stumbled upon that could leak their future pricing plans... but that's for y'all to find ;-)
Wouter van Diggelen
Hi, I made my own Optimizely Spy bookmarklet, with syntax highlighting, but not all the functions as the bookmarklet above. You can check it out at: http://woutervandiggelen.nl/my-optimizely-spy-bookmarklet/