Should I begrudge telling my coworker a few social bookmarking sites? Seo Office Drama!

I work in seo too for my day job. I am the only one who does off site building, social bookmarking etc. My co-worker only does keyword reports but she does some seo/auto blog stuff on her own time too to make extra $. She was asking me if I used a tool to social bookmark and I said no. I told her I bookmark manually and I choose the ones that show up in backlinks and are do follow. She asked me which ones I favor and I told her three or four and she wrote them down!!

If she asked me only for the scope of work then that's fine. I just don't want to help her out with her own stuff. I am afraid she might use these social bookmarking sites for her own sites! If it's for something work related for the company then I don't mind. Should I ask her why she wrote them down?

It was only three or four social bookmarking sites but they were ones she didn't know of before. I guess I'm stingy. I don't want my knowledge to benefit her or help her out in any way whatsoever. I only work for the company; my knowledge should not be for her use or profit! Should I confront her and ask her what she plans to do with it and why she was writing it down or will it just create trouble?

It's been bothering me for days. Am I just being stingy?

I wouldn't be confrontational over it, but you could be unhelpful in future situations... For example, say it depends, then if she goes into details about work help her, but if not send her to digg, stumble upon, and stupidly obvious sites.

You are being a little stingy in my opinion, but sometimes that is good. Knowledge is what sets you ahead, why share it and let someone get ahead of you (in a competitive setting)?

I don't really know what to say here except that's pretty silly when you look at it. You told her a few social bookmarking sites--not your money method or the secret to life in the universe.

What if everyone on blackhatworld was this stingy with their knowledge? A lot of us would have never gotten to where we are today. You're asking a community built around sharing ideas if sharing a very common piece of knowledge with a single person was a bad choice.

I wouldn't go up to someone and tell them my entire backlinking strategy, but I see nothing wrong with giving friendly advice to a floundering coworker.

MattDunbar said:

I wouldn't be confrontational over it, but you could be unhelpful in future situations... For example, say it depends, then if she goes into details about work help her, but if not send her to digg, stumble upon, and stupidly obvious sites.

You are being a little stingy in my opinion, but sometimes that is good. Knowledge is what sets you ahead, why share it and let someone get ahead of you (in a competitive setting)?

Click to expand...

That's true; in the future I could avoid giving info. I am just accidentally disappointed at accidentally slipping and telling her stuff because I wasn't expecting it.

Mokodoki said:

I don't really know what to say here except that's pretty silly when you look at it. You told her a few social bookmarking sites--not your money method or the secret to life in the universe.

What if everyone on blackhatworld was this stingy with their knowledge? A lot of us would have never gotten to where we are today. You're asking a community built around sharing ideas if sharing a very common piece of knowledge with a single person was a bad choice.

I wouldn't go up to someone and tell them my entire backlinking strategy, but I see nothing wrong with giving friendly advice to a floundering coworker.

Click to expand...

Thanks for putting it into perspective. She's not really floundering, I think she makes around an extra 1k a month from Adsense on Autoblogs. I guess I am stingy because I feel like the company is paying for my time so my knowledge is only to benefit the company and not her directly... kwim?

She was actually telling me i SHOULD be using a social bookmarking tool like SocialBot or Poster (forgot the name) more like telling me what to do or suggesting how I can improve, not really asking for help I don't think. That's why I don't want her to benefit from my knowledge, but like you said its not a huge deal, just a few sites, not linking strategy.

What I'd recommend you do next time she asks something:

If for example she asks you for social bookmarking, tell her that you would do the favor for her, and do them for her. She doesn't know how to do them, but she gets the links. You will have one more employee from the firm on your side if something goes wrong, and she will think she owes you a BIG favor.

And one extra run in BMD or whatever wont hurt you. 0.3$ of decapt for a good rep and maybe getting laid? Getting laid for doing social bookmarks? Now that's what i'm talking about.

And if she tells your boss, he will think higher then before of you as a human being. Don't teach her to fish, give her a fish or two

Blackhat for a coworker ofc

But I'd still advise you to change strategy: give her some forums like bhw to research, maybe she'll find something you didn't know about and she will not take over your job since you've done all those "big" favors for her just because you're a nice guy.


(damn I'm good )

You gave her a strat that worked 2 years ago. No big deal.

I wouldnt tell her anything...... There's something called "Trade Secrets".....

accelerator_dd said:

What I'd recommend you do next time she asks something:

If for example she asks you for social bookmarking, tell her that you would do the favor for her, and do them for her. She doesn't know how to do them, but she gets the links. You will have one more employee from the firm on your side if something goes wrong, and she will think she owes you a BIG favor.

And one extra run in BMD or whatever wont hurt you. 0.3$ of decapt for a good rep and maybe getting laid? Getting laid for doing social bookmarks? Now that's what i'm talking about.

And if she tells your boss, he will think higher then before of you as a human being. Don't teach her to fish, give her a fish or two

Blackhat for a coworker ofc

But I'd still advise you to change strategy: give her some forums like bhw to research, maybe she'll find something you didn't know about and she will not take over your job since you've done all those "big" favors for her just because you're a nice guy.


(damn I'm good )

Click to expand...

No, this woman knows a lot; she knows about social bookmarking, article marketing everything already. Everyone in our dept knows a lot of things about SEO; she just doesn't do the off site work since I do but she knows how to. She was just asking me specifically which one I favored. She knows some stuff I don't even know. For example, she suggested some wp plug ins to help get our articles backlinked through our blogs and at first I had no idea what she was talking about at all.

She doesn't want me to do runs in BMD for her and probably wouldn't give me her urls. She only asked me which ones I personally liked. She already reads forums like Warrior etc.

No getting laid. She is an old woman and you know what, I'm actually a female too. If I was a guy I might be nicer (I guess men are nicer to women in general) but since I am female I don't like helping out random people. She is not my friend (we're not close).

I only want to give knowledge to help out the company (work related) but not one on one.

elocin said:

I wouldnt tell her anything...... There's something called "Trade Secrets".....

Click to expand...

The problem is that I don't know if she was asking for WORK related research or for herself. It could be for WORK because she will often suggest things that we should do for off-site work even though she doesn't do it herself. Like paid press releases or guest blogging etc. So it could be she asked for work but I am not SURE.