1)
How do you define value?

Is it by the number of views, clicks or the number of actions? Value is different for every campaign and a link on a top 100 site is more valuable in different ways for different reasons.

2)
There is no range. If you talk to an ad sales rep, he or she may provide you with historical data of what other people have seen throughout the course of a campaign, but a range other than "between one and a million" really can't be calculated.

This is the core of an issue in any online advertising. With TV, radio or print, you can be pretty sure about what you're going to receive. You know that each medium has x number of viewers and traditionally, at this time and for this product, your sales will increase by y.

Online advertising however works the other way around. With traditional media buys, you can predict how far out your message is going to reach. With online advertising on the other hand, you don't know beforehand how far your message is going to reach, but after the campaign is over (and even during) you can find out _exactly_ where, who and why people are consuming your ads.

The difference lies with the content and the viewers. Online content changes frequently - especially for top 100 sites. Links relate differently, attention is directed in different places at different times, etc. The viewers themselves change frequently and while patterns can be drawn, your link will attract different people for different reasons.

Add all of these variables up and you have the reason why you won't be able to get a straight answer out of an advertising salesperson as to the value of an inbound link from a top 100 property.

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