This gives recruiting services a bad name

That's really funny!!...and basically the reality of trying to make dough out of kids (and their parents)...this is basically a "lie" because they really did not see your son, but trying to get your money. It is horrible to think that there are people/organizations out there like that.

Hope your son's pulled muscle gets better.

Timely!...

Again, I'll "toot the horn" for hsbaseballweb & the FACT that players & their parents do NOT need to use these types of services. We've had a few show up over the years & they just tend to melt away...

Everything one needs to know about the process is readily available right here! FREE!!! From a bunch of folks very willing to pay it forward for the last 18 years! 

Your son should reply and tell him that you both were so impressed with his letter that you think he should join the presidential election - that he seems equally qualified and owns many of the same character traits as the two top dogs currently running.

In general, I don't think recruiting services need help getting a bad name.  The problem is some kid there was sitting 84-87, got the email, and thinks these people can actually help him. 

"Thank you for your note, I only wish I had been able to get to the tournament that weekend in Ft Myers.  Look forward to hearing from you."

"Thanks for the email. Tell me more what you noticed about my pitching?"

Lol, My son got one as well. He was on the roster until Tuesday or Wednesday and was removed when he didn't make the trip. 

Obviously this is someone using our event and information to drum up business.  It's not the first time.  

We have banned some from our events, but it doesn't stop them from getting the information they want.  Unfortunately I'm sure they fool some people.  Hopefully no one that follows this site.

I think one of these folks called us and we just said thanks but no thanks. It was early in the process and something about the overwhelming praise and certainty made me unsure about their real angle.

The 2020 crowd has been getting solicited by a group that claims to have scouting information about our sons and "he just made the top 2000 players list for the class of 2020!", just pay $XXX to see his full write up!  The top 7 names on the site that they called out in their email look pretty familiar, although they did change the order from the PG website so I'm SURE that makes it totally different.

Ft Myers was awesome ! Unfortunatley there were some people who took advantage of the situation. there always are. 

Having almost no understanding of how the internet actually works, can anyone comment on whether HSBASEBALL gets identified during some of the basic searches a parent might use when first looking into college recruiting?  I expect many other sites compete for many of the basic searches as I understand there is some level of promotion that can be bought which might move your site up the list.  Not recommending HSBASEBALL pay big money to improve its profile, just wondering if its profile is strong enough and what, if anything (outside of cold hard cash), can be done to improve its visibility.  I really think if someone comes here and spends 10-15 minutes poking around, they will likely get hooked and begin to better understand why paid 3rd parties are not necessary and may not actually provide much benefit at all.

I found this site by just doing a search several years ago. I don't remember what terms I searched with. I can't even remember what other sites popped up.  This was the one that stuck with me. I read for over a year, I imagine before I even joined and posted a question.

I told several of my local friends about this site, on more than one occasion. Mentioned it on our HS baseball website. Not sure that any ever availed themselves of the knowledge you may obtain here. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

2017LHPscrewball posted:

Having almost no understanding of how the internet actually works, can anyone comment on whether HSBASEBALL gets identified during some of the basic searches a parent might use when first looking into college recruiting?  I expect many other sites compete for many of the basic searches as I understand there is some level of promotion that can be bought which might move your site up the list.  Not recommending HSBASEBALL pay big money to improve its profile, just wondering if its profile is strong enough and what, if anything (outside of cold hard cash), can be done to improve its visibility.  I really think if someone comes here and spends 10-15 minutes poking around, they will likely get hooked and begin to better understand why paid 3rd parties are not necessary and may not actually provide much benefit at all.

In simple terms, there are a couple ways this can be done-typically rather expensive in terms of time and/or money:

1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM): The purchase of Ad's using a variety of options. Pay-per-click based on key words, key search phrases, Geo-located Ad's, etc. ($$$-money).

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO):  This is achieved primarily through the unique 'content' contained within the website. Needs to be fresh, recognized by the major search engines (different analytic's used by the different search engines (bing, google, yahoo, etc.), always needs to be updated and relevant to the topic(s) searched, etc. ($$$-time).

There are a multitude of companies that perform the above, none of which are in-expensive.

I personally found this site about a year or so ago by searching for 'HS Baseball chat boards/forums'. It took a little while for me to notice all the good 'recruiting info' b/c I was looking for a 'chat board' on HS baseball. Although there is a lot of good recruiting info on the site, it appears to be a little dated (not speaking of the content contained within the threads/posts on the 'forum'). Could it be updated and optimized? Absolutely. Could it be done quickly or cheaply? Probably not (jmho).

Best and cheapest form of advertising? Word of mouth!

To answer your first question....I just searched 'college baseball recruiting' on google and this site came up number: 4 in the organic results (not a paid ad) which is a pretty stellar result! Here is the link that populated:

http://www.hsbaseballweb.com/recruit_timeline.htm

The unfortunate part in todays world is that you have roughly 30 seconds to 'capture your audience' and gain their attention or get them to 'hang out' and peruse through the site and although the 'recruiting timeline' has great content, it doesn't really compare to the 'nuggets' of info found in individual posts on the forum describing peoples personal and 'real' experiences as they have, are and will proceed through the (sometimes fun and often brutal) path of college baseball recruiting.

I went and searched on Google and it seems like HSBASEBALL comes first under several searches, but wondering if my past usage of the site influences that.  Recruiting Process, Recruiting Tips and Recruiting Timeline all come back as first choice followed by lots of for-profit sites.  Hopefully it shows up for most people early in the lists as I'm guessing the marketing approach is simply cost prohibitive.  I can hope folks find this site, and am eternally grateful I stumbled across it.  Started down one path that sounded like a perfect fit, but was able to get educated here before stroking the first check.  That organization was pretty reputable and maybe more focused on helping out with some of the less visible sports, but in hindsight did not really offer up anything we could not tackle ourselves - with the added benefit of actually understanding what was being done instead of relying on someone else's black box so to speak.

cabbagedad posted:

Your son should reply and tell him that you both were so impressed with his letter that you think he should join the presidential election - that he seems equally qualified and owns many of the same character traits as the two top dogs currently running.

Now that was funny!!

If you create a website the name of your site automatically becomes searchable on the internet. One other way you can get more exposure is to pay companies who's specialty is the marketing of websites.    

I know you can bury meta tags in the site that are searchable to the engines....i did that on several sites i ran over the years and didnt pay anything. But im sure the results vary with paying for a professional to do it. 

my 2019 got a suspiciously similar email today... he DID pitch that day and the stats are right, (vague, but correct- like a phone psychic!) but I'm guessing the author wasn't sitting behind home plate watching my kid....

"X, You had a good performance this past weekend at the City of Palms Park in Fort Myers.  Were sitting 84-86 with some nice off speed stuff.  Although a few runs were given up, we were very Impressed with your mound presence and outing.  I would like to talk with you and your parents about your plans for college baseball.  Look forward to hearing from you soon.