Preview Bar
A bottom toolbar that lets you view your live site as any test → variant — drafts included — without touching results.
Preview Bar
Browse your real site as any test → variant from a bar pinned to the bottom of the page. Drafts included, results untouched.
The Preview Bar is a thin toolbar — Shopify-admin style — fixed to the bottom of your own website. Pick a test, pick a variant, and the page instantly shows you what a visitor in that variant would see. It's how you sanity-check a variant on real content, on real pages, before a single visitor is enrolled.
Crucially, it works for draft tests that haven't launched yet — not just live ones. Drafts are never served to your real traffic, so the signed Preview Bar session is the only way to see a draft variant on your live site.
Otter A/BPreviewTestHomepage Hero · Draft ▾VariantNew Headline ▾✕How it works
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Launch "Preview on site"
From the test wizard's Variants step, a test's page, or the edit screen, click Preview on site. Otter A/B checks your project's snippet is verified and that the URL belongs to your project's domain, then issues a short-lived signed session. - 2
Your site opens in a new tab
Unlike the visual editor's popup, the Preview Bar opens a normal new tab so you can browse freely. The bar appears at the bottom, pre-loaded with every test in the project, each badged Draft, Running, or Paused. - 3
Pick a test, then a variant
Choosing a variant applies it live: visual and personalization variants apply their DOM changes in place; redirect variants navigate to the variant's URL. Pick Original (control) to drop back to the unmodified page. Switching tests always resets the variant to Original first — no surprise mutations. - 4
Browse — the bar follows you
As you click around your site the session rides along in the tab, so the bar re-appears on each new page and re-applies your current selection. Hit ✕ to exit and return to the clean page.
Good to know
It never touches your results. The bar forces the variant you pick for your browser only — it bypasses normal assignment and fires no conversion or assignment tracking. Switch variants as much as you like; nothing is recorded against the experiment.
Viewers can preview too. Because previewing is read-only, every role — including viewers — can launch the Preview Bar. (The visual editor, which mutates variants, stays owner/admin/member only.)
Signed, scoped, and time-limited. Each session is signed, bound to your verified project's domain, and valid for 30 minutes. When it expires, relaunch from anywhere you see Preview on site.
One test at a time. The bar previews a single test → variant at once. Switching tests tears down the previous variant cleanly before applying the next.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers to the questions teams ask most about this part of Otter A/B.