How we sort

Over a thousand laptops, new prices and deals every day: a list only helps if what is worth a look sits at the top. So we do not sort alphabetically, and not by what manufacturers would like to see first, but by what buyers on your-perfect-laptop.co.uk are doing right now. And because we are funded by retailer commissions, this page tells you exactly where that comes into the order.

Recommended

Recommended is the default sort in the configurator, the buying guide and on brand, model range and series pages. It is calculated automatically, updated several times a day and the same for every user. Three things decide it.

Popularity. How often a laptop was recently referred from your-perfect-laptop.co.uk to a partner retailer. It is the strongest signal of what buyers are interested in right now: a new deal shows up here within hours.

Purchases. How often referrals to a retailer actually end in a purchase. We measure this per retailer and price range, not per laptop. A retailer where buying works well lifts the laptops it offers.

Commission. The payment we have agreed with the retailer, as a commission on the purchase price or an amount per referral. It is how we fund your-perfect-laptop.co.uk; for you the comparison stays free and the price at the retailer stays the same.

How the three are weighted. Popularity counts for slightly more than purchases and commission together. A laptop that is referred far more often sits at the top even if its commission is lower. Where popularity is similar, purchases and commission decide: the offer we expect to earn more from appears further up. To that extent the order depends on commission. Laptops whose expected commission is below a fixed minimum are placed after the other available laptops; they stay in the list. No retailer can buy a position.

Rankings

"Top 10 Laptops Today", "Top 3" on category pages, "Top 10 ... compared" and the "#1 Laptop" at the top of brand and series pages are extracts of the same Recommended sort: number 1 is the laptop that sits first in that selection. The same three parameters and the same weighting apply, including the commission effect. "Today" means the list may look different tomorrow.

Top Model Ranges and Top Series

Rankings of model ranges and series, including "Top 3 Model Ranges" and "Top 3 Series", are derived from the positions of the laptops in them, so commission plays a part here too. Sections headed "Popular", such as processors and graphics cards, and the "(popular)" marker in filters are based only on how often users view or select them; commission plays no part there.

Sorting without any commission effect

Every list has a sort menu: price low to high and high to low, saving, new arrivals, brand, weight, battery life, storage, display size. These sort by that one attribute only. The price comparison on every product page is sorted by price, cheapest first. Search orders results by how well they match your query.

What "Ad" means

Some placements are paid: banners and product cards labelled "Ad". They are separate from the sort order and do not change the position of any other laptop.

For partner retailers

Offers appear when a commission agreement exists with the retailer, directly or through an affiliate network, and the laptop is in our database; not every offer of a partner retailer is listed. The agreed commission feeds into the default sort through the commission parameter; a position cannot be bought. Listing enquiries: partner@your-perfect-laptop.co.uk.

Alternatives on product pages

Where we show you alternative laptops on a product page, we pick them by the same Recommended sort, limited to comparable devices.