Selling/trading web exposure

[Masquerador]

This might be better in another forum, so please move if that's the case.

We recently purchased a poorly monetised, content rich site (not poker related). The industry in question is very much suited to affiliate marketing and, as we have done in the past, we are looking to improve the site and get some suitable affiliate links up.

One of my colleagues suggested we try something new (for us) and I can't quite get my head round whether it's worth trying or a complete non-starter.

Rather than adding our own review pages with affiliate links, we offer other affiliates their own page(s) on the website. They could have pages reviewing their own sites, with incontent links etc, banners etc. And they could have their own review pages - with their own affiliate links. There could be a variety of ways to "charge" for these pages - such as linkbacks, articles, sub-affiliating, or a straight financial charge.

Now I realise in essence this is just a glorified link exchange/selling or article submission type affair, but I was interested if any had any thoughts on it's viability? And, as a separate question, would/could it work in the poker industry? Or indeed, it it already being done?

Would be really grateful for any thoughts.

[MPC]

Personally, I think that model doesn't work.

You're basically talking about renting a page, and it's been done before. In my opinion, it's a flawed business model. If I have to rent a page to put up my affiliate links, revenu from those links would need to exceed the cost of renting the space. If the math works out that way, then the person renting the page should just put up their own affiliate links as they would make more money that way. If they rent, it's because the page isn't generating money as far as I'm concerned.

If we're not talking money, but you let me post my own review page in exchange for links let's say. Then that's still a problem for me because A - You'll neevr make any effort to market my page, build links to it, get it to rank. So now I end up having to do that work for myself and why should I bother pushing the page on your site when I can push the one on my site?

[Masquerador]

Thanks for the response MPC. Your thinking is similar to mine, to be honest - why sell a page to a person that would only but that page if they can make a profit, when you could be making that profit instead.

The counter-argeument from my colleague (who is really keen to try this!) is that the person renting the page could get multiple benefits - e.g

- multiple links to his own site(s) (from a content rich site)
- potential for traffic to his review page from people browsing the content rich site
- potential for his review page to rank for chosen terms (obviously a bit of effort required for this)
- increased opportunity for three way link exchanges (eg. you offer a link out from your "rented" page in exchange for a link to your site)

in exchange for just one link back or a nominal fee (for examples)

Although I can see his argument, I just can't see how it could be made attractive enough for other affiliates - unless you were giving up income you could be making yourself!

That being said, I'm always up for trying things out and as it's something we've not tried before, I'm reluctant to completely dismiss it - even though I'm entirely inclined to think it's a flawed idea!