[BungeeBones]

Re: pricing - income potential

Web directories are popular. With the proliferation of free, open source software it is a simple procedure to install one. Getting the links, maintaining the links, and getting income from one is not so easy.

Yahoo may have set the standard operating procedures for directories. They go something like this - first, host links for free. Get people to submit their own website info and let the directory fill up. second, when the directory starts to reach a point where the visitor traffic warrants it, start charging to list then third, keep bumping up the price.

What I am attempting is to lay a groundwork ahead of time for the webmasters that post the directory on their site to share in the income. In a manner similar to Adsense I ask to "rent" website space from webmasters but instead of renting alongside existing web pages like Adsense does I ask to rent a new, entire page. Instead of showing just four links like Adsense I show them all, organized by category.

Adsense and Pay Per Click have had a problem with fraud from their inception. I instead use a pay per "action" strategy where webmasters get paid for paid link subscribers. Just as other start up directories have to reach the point of "critical mass" where the traffic reaches a marketable size so does BungeeBones. But I recognize this and offer the commission split in anticipation. The more webmasters that add directories to their site the more traffic into the network. The more traffic the higher the paid link income and commissions to the webmasters. On a local website level, paid link sales should reflect the affiliate directory's own traffic level. Higher traffic sites simply will sell more paid links.

Yahoo treats all categories the same. but all directory categories are not created equal. There are some high priced categories such as law, real estate, etc. and there are some such as not-for-profit, girl scouts, little leagues etc that are willing to pay little or none. So the paid link system used on BungeeBones to compensate webmasters is variably priced. Categories start out free for as long as their population is below a certain level. Once the threshold is reached a price gets established (hopefully by directory hosts in that category). Those in it either begin paying or are moved. This system doesn't pit webmasters in bidding wars against each other. Category prices are basically established to remain competitive with other advertising methods such as Pay Per Click. Since there are an infinite number of potential categories there will always be the opportunity for free links but the desire of webmasters to be in the upper, more searched through categories will use pricing to keep their populations at a usable population level.