Is providing high quality 3D models in exchange for back links a white-hat link-building strategy?

Question

Would you consider this a safe (white hat) link-building strategy?

Our company has built 3D interactive models of some ecommerce products.

We want to allow other sites to use these models in their own ecommerce stores, at no cost, so long as they provide a backlink to us.

Reasons I think it's okay:

• The 3D models are quality content, these were expensive to create, they're unique, and they get high engagement from website visitors.

• They'll only be used on sites that are relevant to our industry

• We will manually approve which sites can use these 3D models

Reasons I question if it's okay:

• There is an "exchange" happening. We provide the 3D model for them, they link back to us.

Answer 1

This was a very common tactic for sidebar widgets with a link back to a website. Google determined that these links were advertorial in nature and should be tagged nofollow.

It is a halfway decent idea, but just provide the models on the pages that you want to rank. I assume they are topically related.

Just put them behind a social share or similar opt-in and hopefully you will pick up some organic links if you get some traction on social. Reach out to some top pages, influencers, and blogs and maybe you will get links that way.