A known good link and the date it was added (or checked) should be sufficient. Pricing can be discovered by clicking the link. If the link is dead, that can be recorded too.
The way I'd want to build it, in a perfect world, would be to have some really simple and lightweight js that was appended to the end of all pages that we knew were for products (so, just for some sections). It would then work like this:
1. The js would pull the title of the page (so the name of the product).
2. Both Amazon and Newegg have APIs for retrieving pricing and product information live. In this way, instead of depending on the server to batch update every now and then, users would get immediate current price quotes as the page loads.
3. We'd present the price and a direct link for both Amazon and Newegg. If it wasn't available, we'd just say "not available" or something.
4. AFAIK, camelcamelcamel doesn't provide an easy way to embed pricing histograms of products, but man would I like to include that. I might reach out and ask whether or not they're open to such a thing if we prominently linked to them or something.
I haven't built much js in my life, though, so I don't know what the complexity of a bespoke solution would look like. This doesn't seem like a lot, though. Additionally, there may be existing embedded or XenForo-based solutions that do 90% of all this, and we'd probably prefer using those since we'd get more reliable support. We just haven't looked into it much yet.
Or you could link it it automatically to partner websites along with referrals. This way you get some steady income going on click-throughs that don't invade privacy or security the way ads do.
I've actually brought this up internally. In the long term, we're going to have to subsidize the cost of the wiki somehow, as right now only the forum (through donations, which are a little under costs as of today) and the news site (through laughably low ad revenue, at least currently) are seeing back any money to offset our growing expenses. But there's definitely something just seemingly awkward and off-putting about putting advertising on a knowledge resource... or worse yet, doing a sponsorship. The veracity and objectiveness of the wiki would undoubtedly be questioned.
Comparatively, by having a blind automated system implemented that gave folks a feature they actually want anyway - the ability to see the price of a component
right now, which is certainly pertinent and valuable information - we'd be able to systematically avoid any bias in terms of components and products themselves, ensuring that user's trust in content is maintained.
There are downsides, though. This functionality couldn't be exhaustive, crawling all over the web for the absolute best deal, and it could be argued that we'd be biased towards the likes of Newegg and Amazon, who offer affiliate programs. Furthermore, we'd have an incentive to drive creation of wiki pages more for products than for other resources that wouldn't be monetized, at least in theory. In fact, one could argue that we'd have an incentive to have wiki pages on products editorialize or use more positive language, though I don't personally believe this would happen for a variety of reasons.
