Do you think it's reasonable to ask affiliate merchants to link to your website on their link page if you are actively promoting them? Thoughts?
That's a pretty pessimistic way to look at it. If you make a sale, you just generated more business for them.
But if the person was already at the developer's website, they'll buy it if they want it. If they leave the site to an affiliate, why would they buy it from there? If I was the developer I would link to useful resources, not websites selling identical products to yours where you lose the commission.
in my opinion, it's not a good idea to ask people . you can ask it but i think they will not accept it
Well it depends on the merchant IMHO And yes it's more than reasonable to ask for it IF you know who u r gonna ask
yes you can get a text link from affiliates, but its their discretion only if there is no commission loss. Only they might provide a inconspicuous link from somewhere just to give you SEO benefit.
you are right nobody would like to loose a commission, when that is their bread and butter. There are some business sites who provide paid links, but that is also not advisable, also search engines are very much averse to paid links.
Just make them do it. Stick it in there code that they have to paste on their site. Or just forget about it if they are making you sales.