I have a format of pages that I want to perform an A/B comparison on using google website optimizer.
the URLs look as follows - the first page I want to compare...
<mywebsite.com>/request1/([a-zA-Z0-9\-]*)_([0-9]+).htm
vs
<mywebsite.com>/request2/([a-zA-Z0-9\-]*)_([0-9]+).htm
the goal page is
<mywebsite.com>/request-sent.htm
How can I set this up in google website optimizer? If it's not possible, are there alternative solutions available for doing such comparison reports online?
I'm not sure about A/B testing, but the Multivariate test should work, as far as I know that relies on the JS you insert in the page more than the URL.
When setting it up, just enter one of your url rewritten pages get /request1/hello_3.htm so it can parse through it and look for the blocks you want to vary. This should then work on all the rewrites also such as /request1/hello_6.htm.
You can do what you want you describe with Google Website Optimizer, but you cannot do it with an A/B test, you will have to run a MVT test to simulate an A/B test.
To have a MVT test simulate an A/B test you must create one section, then wrap the section code around blank space directly under the control script, then make one alternative for that section which has some javascript which redirects the user to the B page with window.location.replace( newURL ); where newURL is page B (remember to pass the query string and hash string too). So newURL would look something like: pageB + window.location.search + window.location.hash