Google has taken the beta label off a project that is significantly younger than Gmail, which remains in beta. Google Website Optimizer has been available to AdWords customers for the past year, but now the company is making it available to anyone who wants to test out different web site layouts.

Basically, the tool lets you try out different designs on you web page to see which one performs best. Want to see which ad unit is more likely to get people to click? Want to see which RSS icon is more likely to get people to subscribe to your site’s feed? Google Website Optimizer will let you set up an experiment and track the results.

There’s also a new Google Website Optimizer blog that you can follow for news and tips related to the tool. Since I do my own SEO for my websites, I’m looking forward to fiddling around with this new tool.