/ / / Under Construction / / /

[Paulo]

Don't you just love those sites/pages with 'Under Construction' and the gizmos that go with them? You know the ones, the animated gif of the guy digging, the black/yellow warning barriers etc. When was the last time you used a shovel to design, develop or maintain a website?

And you know the worst thing about this... I had a client ask me yesterday to put up such a holding page. Try as I did to convince them otherwise, they were absolutely adamant about it. *sigh* I feel so dirty...

They don't seem to be as common as they used to be, anyone seen any recently?

[Reece]

I would have thought that knowing most sites only get search engine spidered every 28 days or so would have discouraged more from the "under construction type pages".
But I have noticed just as many "under construction" kinds of pages as I did in the past. The new crop of builders seem to be all FLASH users though, and not relying on the old stock animations anymore.
This means I get to wait for 2 minutes on cable to hear their FAVORITE mp3,and see the words "under construction" or "coming soon" 300 times in every effect option Swish has.

[krend]

I have such a page - a couple of them actually.
I ran out of space on my server and had to cut some sites that I had created and post the dreaded page. But, be consoled, I didn't use the little construction guy.
One day, when I am rich, have all the web space I can dance on, I will never post such a page.

But until then....

[carju1]

Paulo,

Get into a cold shower, whilst in the shower repeat 20 times. "I am a professional, I should never put up an under construction page" Then turn the heat up on the shower and repeat 20 times "The client is always right, the client pays my heating bills"

Now don't you feel better :)

Julian

[dean]

They usually don't need to get the shovel out until after the content is written.
Anyway, what are you going to say when the site is done and the client wants background music and dancing dolls?

[krend]

Or even better, they want a scrolling pen over paper to hide there email link!

And then personal pictures of them and their familes having a barbecue for their "official photo."

[Paulo]

Originally Posted by carju1

Get into a cold shower, whilst in the shower repeat 20 times. "I am a professional, I should never put up an under construction page" Then turn the heat up on the shower and repeat 20 times "The client is always right, the client pays my heating bills"

Now don't you feel better :)

Hey Julian, I took your advice but it really stings where I'd already flayed the skin from my worthless hide... LOL ;)

Reece, I even offered to enter all the blurb with contact details and launch date etc, just to create something of even a little value... oh well.

[wenwilder]

Why put up an underconstruction page if it is underconstruction? No one knows it there, so don't put up a page until it's done!

I know, that makes sense, but clients don't always see it that way. Boy I feel for webdesigners!

[matauri]

The poor old Under Construction page, such brutal designers ;-)

However guys, you can make these 'coming soon' pages work for you if they aren't long term. I have a 'coming soon' page that got a PR3 in less than 4 weeks! If you have what the basic content of the page is going to deliver, and you optimise it, then it can hold its place while you get it up. It also allows you to work on bugs on a page without losing your listing.



Cindy

[vilesilencer]

Originally Posted by Matauri

The poor old Under Construction page, such brutal designers ;-)

However guys, you can make these 'coming soon' pages work for you if they aren't long term. I have a 'coming soon' page that got a PR3 in less than 4 weeks! If you have what the basic content of the page is going to deliver, and you optimise it, then it can hold its place while you get it up. It also allows you to work on bugs on a page without losing your listing.



Cindy

I have done much the same thing. I had this "coming soon" page http://vilesilencer.com/old.php for my personal site when i moved to my domain for the first time. It was up for around 3 to 4 months I think. I set up the php logs and monitored the slow builing up of a steady stream of visitors. At the same time i started building the links with my friends and affiliates, and some of them were nice enough to dedicate a paragraph or two describing what the site would be about, when it was going up etc etc... When I finally launched the new personal site on the new domain, I was getting perhaps 5 times as many unique visitors as previously on the free host, where i had the site for 3 years hehehe[/url]

I haven't ever done it with a clients site, but I agree with Cindy that its possibly a great opportunity to debug the site whilst giving people some info about the company and when their site will be up etc etc.