237 karma · joined October 25, 2011
But I think MS's algorithm would have de-ranked the site because any IR algorithm considers the content of the page too - if the web page served to IE users is about redirecting to browser download pages, their crawler (which may identify itself as IE) might not consider it to be the best result about 'Kogan'.
As an aside, you probably don't want to piss Apple off by asking HN about it in public!
How is Google supposed to track repeat visitors without any kind of state except IP? And IP is an awful variable for state because of NAT.
The heading is misleading and overly sensational.
You know why? It's because Google makes it easy to spot the sponsored link if you spend more than half a second on it before clicking. A yellow background and text that says 'Sponsored Link' is way less deceiving than the lack of a 'like' button.
The devil is in the details. And the significant amount of justification you do in your post shows that you're trying to convince yourself as much as us that it's OK.