Clicked on this OzBargain link to check out the product. After I had clicked to see the product on the Harvey Norman website, I was greeted by this chat pop up that referred to me as OzBargainer. As flattered as I am, I wonder what process permitted my categorisation?
I originally thought it was a GET request parameter passed, but that does not appear to be the case.
Now I think the site might detect a referral from another site, but have not heard of webservers having that ability; or
Perhaps some public 'cookie' being read to categorise me as a type of user.
What do you think?
When you click on a link, your browser also sends a Referer Header which identifies where the link came from. Also it's not the redirect that's doing it. There is one temporary redirect done by OzBargain to track how many times the deal was clicked on, but it's the Referer info that HN's website is inspecting.
Yes, referer was a misspelling in the original RFC.