Frequently Asked Technical Questions

How does Shogun avoid the "Flash of Content" problem?

Shogun prevents a flash of content by intercepting the page request before any content is rendered by the browser, redirecting to the appropriate variant using Shopify view parameters. Rather than manipulating the DOM after load, this server-side routing ensures the correct content is delivered immediately. After rendering, Shogun updates the browser’s address bar to reflect the original URL the user navigated to.

Does Shogun impact my page performance?

With all rendering done by the Shopify platform, Shogun ensures that we have all data available to make a decision on which variant to render within the initial page load and interrupt the process as early as possible to prevent any unnecessary delays. There will be a very minimal performance impact because the user's browser starts to load the initial request and then needs to make another request to get the selected variant.

​Our performance impact is significantly reduced, compared to other testing platforms, by not having to make external calls to determine variant selection, which subsequently requires swapping content on the page, which leads to the flash of content problem.