Outsourcing Work You Consider Trade Secrets?
 

I'm looking for opinions from people who have outsourced in the past. A lot of the repetitive work that I've considered outsourcing I'd consider a trade secret (keyword filtering, keyword list generation). Anyways, from the internal scripts I have here onsite, we generate hundreds of thousands of keyword suggestions and the repetitive portion of the work involves manually going through the keywords and determining if they are relevant to the niche / market being targetted. Once this list is filtered, I consider the final list a very valuable resource or trade secret.

In the past I have hired students to do this, but for some smaller niches, the market size is not worth the cost of hiring locally but it is for outsourced operations. I'm wondering what are your thoughts on outsourcing a resource that you consider valuable should it fall into the hands of competitors? Also bear in mind the persons working on this would have to be very proficient in English.

Thanks everyone.
WG

I would never ever outsource trade secrets. Ever. Its like paying someone to learn and practice your business.

Make the guy sign a non disclosur(sp?) contract

Cost of enforcement is rather considerable.
WG

my point about the adultoutsourcing companies is that the proficiency in english wouldnt be high on their list of abilities which considering your aiming for keywords is a bad thing - plus ive talked to enough of these outsourcing reps and been refered to someone else as soon as they dont understand what the fuck im trying to tell them

Also do you really want to drop YOUR hard earned and researched trade secrets into the lap of someone in a different country with possibly no morals and will do anything to make a couple more bucks for the big boss paying them $50 a month from the $995 youre paying them

never outsource SEO stuff

At the same time its not something I can do myself either which is the dilemma I'm facing right now. Using local staff would not be profitable for a considerable time for some smaller markets and some mainstream industries so this is why outsourcing was appealing. But at the same time, if this data falls into the wrong hands, it could be used against me...
WG

The SEO portion is fully automated. Its the keyword generation which is manual and unfortunately the most valuable resource (to me).
WG

hire me, ill work 2 hours a day for $695 a week :winkwink:

Once it's outsourced, it's no longer a trade secret.

that's a tough one.... i'd say hire someone 'in-house'... maybe someone you know... so at least if he learns, it's ok, cuz you're helping a friend out to succeed too :upsidedow

Dont outsource any work which you wouldnt feel comfortable falling into the hands of competitors. Outsourcing companies are your competitors. If they can easily reproduce your operation once they have the methods you outline for them, they will, either for themselves or for their other clients.

outsourced ppl would work 8 hours per day for $695 per MONTH :-)

WG, I will make a deal with you. Teach me the ins and outs, and I will do the work. when I dont need the work anymore, ( financially ) I will get some students here in mexico. labor is about 10 to 30$ a day!

hire a family member you can trust, or a friend that you know wont know what to do with the information.

I concur. You need to give this info to someone close to you that you can trust or keep it to yourself.

perhaps go with a non-adult outsourcing agency, who would have no desire to use those adult keywords.

Or just got access to a new goldmine that they know how to mine.

Matt

I know but the keyword list that you use for SEO is the most important thing of SEO

Without the good keyword combo's your SEO profits would be bad.

When someone knows knows what keywords he has to target and when he is able to make such a list. It is just a matter of reading a few SEO articles to make big $$$.


When you read SEO stuff it's always about generating the pages and getting listed high but almost never about finding the good/profitable keywords.

Maybe you have to automate the keyword reliability part of the SEO process

for exaple comparing the adwords campaigns with keywords.

I know it is almost impossible to be made because a 'human brain' needs to check the relevancy

greetz

I wouldn't do it. too valuable.

I wish this was something I could automate. If it were possible, I would never need to work :)
WG

no outsourcing company can speak english :)

Ill show you mine if you show me yours....LOL

Actually i would not share shit, even on an equal info trade.

Good luck with your dilema though.

Peace from north of you.

Guess not huh??

You can trust me. :) Unfortunately if the pay is too low for college students it's probably too low for me.

you will figure it out but I would never outsource that part

Keyword combo's are very important.

Maybe you have to check them yourselfs but i know when it is like 200k combo's :)

My kw lists are very niche branded and most of the time 1-2k max so now and then I'll do some checks (most of the time a do some random tests)

The only thing you can really do is hire someone who has no clue what to do with that info, like a local college kid. Outsourcing companies are not stupid, they will either use that info themselves or sell it to their customers...

Yeah, that's the toughest part to automate. Especially when you're starting from a generic base word like "teen" or "teens", my data harvester scripts will generate like 500K+ keywords. I certainly don't have the time for that anymore. I used to do it myself but these days I've got too much on my hands to sit there and go through line by line, lol.
WG

maybe you can contact google inc. and ask for some search software solutions (j/k)

but why do you start with such a generic based word.

I start with more specific words mostlikely a 2 word combo like eg. "teen panty"

then i get like 1-2k combinations and that is more handable.

because when you enter teen as keyword you will get 70%+ useless keyword combo's

just my 2cents

edit typo

maybe you should use the adwords campaigns mostlikely they are telling you in what niche/branche your keyword combo is profitable in. (that is a thing i'm testing atm)

Some of our staff is outsourced from all over the world...but not SEO..WG...not SEO.

I think the google quote of the day for August 21st is fitting:

You just have to decide how precious your time is compared to how precious what you'd like to risk. As everyone has stated (as you have), there is a risk. There's no right or wrong answers.

(sorry man, wish I had an answer for you.)

but hey WG there is no money in SEO so why all the drama (j/k)

i would be worried about the boss who runs the outsourceing company if he is a competitor of yours and not the acutal worker

It's that small percentage that is usually very uncompetitive.
WG

Exactly why I won't outsource to adult outsourcers :)
WG

If it's the most valuable resource then it should be important enough to do in house only even if it more costly. You have to remember most of these out sourcing companies are your competitors, as most are in the biz as well. So no matter how reputable a company is you should never trust them with your trade secrets.

seriously agree with this one man...go with a local pothead or college kid (same thing isn't it?)


local = easier to exert pressure legally if they try to get shady, or at least it's easier to sell the possibility/reality that it could happen when you know their face, phone # and where they live






Oh, and we all know this is really about getting someone to handle those META TAGS, don't be trying to throw everyone off with this yickity yack about keywords ;)


:thumbsup

yeh rub it in, rub it in...as I'm romancing notepad as we speak, it is truely one of THE most maddening parts of SEO or related marketing things that require loads of keywords...

trusting it to automation or outsourcing is seriously almost impossible...well to get the results/outcome you want

Pay me now, or pay me later.

The game always keeps track of what is owed it, if you do not pay now, you will pay double later.

i trust RL
www.iwebmasters.com

I'd say this remark about sums it up. If you hire someone not in the industry, and has no clue of it's importance (like an intern) then you would probably be better off. Only other real option's keeping it, and doing it all yourself if there is no trusted chum, or family member.

In essence, you need someone who doesn't see the value, or has no interest in long term adult. Otherwise you will find someone who will take it, repackage it, resell it for their own gain.

Sad as it is, that's how people seem to work.

:Oh crap

Outsourcing is a very delicate process certainly for tradesecrets but there are many ways to protect data.
Look at the people behind the company, ask for references and call their references.

Where is the company located? 15 hours flight or just 2-3 hours away? different time zone? Does it operate in the 'grey area' or is the company established and 100% legal?

Many small guys have setup shop and call themself 'outsourcers'. What they mean is they hired 5 workers and make a profit of $2000/mo if that.

http://www.123resourcing.com email info@ and you will receive a reply together with a list of references you can check.

Isn't it a paradox that you consider the list too valuable to risk it being exposed, but not valuable enough to pay someone you can trust to prepare it? Sometimes you have to think beyond saving a few dollars just because superficially the nature of the work is such that you could...

In fact in this case, if you weren't so focused on dollars per hour, you might get someone better educated who could get through the list faster and more accurately.

You'd be asking for trouble outsourcing this sort of work, especially if its through an agency. Of course, if its a small niche, it might be worth the risk.

You can mitigate some of the risk by dividing the keyword list for a niche over several workers. You're also less likely to get screwed if you hire low end data entry types and mislead them somewhat about the nature of the work.

For example, don't tell them you want them to clean a list, rather you want it to be categorized. Tell them you're working on a thesaurus project.

It dosen't do much...

If you outsource with the right compagny / trustable people, I guess it's a chance you can take

2 weeks from now all of the outsourcers on here will be selling key word lists. That is how they work. So no need to give them the keys to making a good one.

I dont really like you, and most the shit you have said about anything remotely SEO is BS in my opinion, but heres a tip.

Spread the work around. Then no one knows too much.

if you make good money why not pay someone a decide dollar locally by you, someone who has no interest in porn and then you are fine.

Outsourcing is good for basic design, submitting, and other bullshit. For something like this you would have to double check their work losing you more time and money. You remember what happen with topbucks and their outsourced gallery descriptions.