Undeveloped Domains

[Nico]

Hi,

What's the best way to handle undeveloped domains that are going to be developed in the near future?

For example: i have a domain (with hosting) that im working on, but it may take a few months to be ready. Should i put a "Coming Soon..." msg, or park the domain, or try to put some keywords/text to start getting in the SERPs, etc.

[Chris]

I wouldn't park it... you don't want it to be hit with a spam penalty. But a coming soon with a logo is acceptable I think.

[paul]

Use wordpress or a static page or two with a generic template to talk about your plans and progress. That at least gets the site indexed with on topic keywords etc.

[Nico]

Thanks Chris, that's what i thought about parking it. I can't believe the amount of domains that i see parked every day.

I liked Paul's suggestion. What do you guys think about it? Can it make a difference?

[Chris]

Definitely.

[MaxS]

I would go with Paul's plan. You may want to create pages with content under a few URLs you know you're going to use when the site is up.

For example, shared-hosting.html could be an article on shared hosting. When the website is complete, you can change that to display your shared hosting plans.

[Generalissimo]

My strategy is similar to Paul's.

Get a basic design made (like I've got) that you can make sites on. Doesn't matter if you change it later.

Make a very quick header for it in photoshop (takes about 3 minutes, just fill background with a pattern (you can find more on deviant art) and put some text over it).

Write one or two paragraphs, and on a menu link it to other relevant sites you have (or are doing the same with).

Google will see it as a small (well tiny) site that is not spammy on the topic, rather than a coming soon page, a parking page or some spam.

Examples of what I do:

http://www.russianrevolution.info
http://www.soccer-history.ws
http://www.healthy-eating.ws
http://www.hockey-history.ws
http://www.nascar-history.ws

Some of these domains I got when other companies that had be doing something similar dropped them (actually one or two of them had fully functioning sites on them rather than just the basic page, sadly some people snapped the best ones up before I got chance).

[Generalissimo]

Another tip from experience: Don't put up wikipedia content or your domain WILL be banned from google.

[allout]

I wouldn't park it... you don't want it to be hit with a spam penalty. But a coming soon with a logo is acceptable I think.

Just curious, why would this happen? I just rescued my domain from Office Live and I am trying to work on a new design and I parked the site. I am curious why you would get a penalty.

I have a freen blog with blogger with the same name is it better to point to that until I get the site going?

[Nico]

Thanks to all! Im going to do that (create a page with news about the development of the site and maybe some small previews of some articles).


Offtopic:

Another tip from experience: Don't put up wikipedia content or your domain WILL be banned from google.
If that msg was for me, i don't copy any content from Wikipedia. Everything on my site(s) is written by me (or others) using multiple sources on the net and offline.

[Generalissimo]

That wasn't a message aimed at anyone, it was general advice. My ancient-china.net site is banned from google because at one time it had only wikipedia content. Now it has only original content and I've requested reinclusion.

[Nico]

Ok, cool. Good luck with the reinclusion of ancient-china.

[BGray]

It depends if it has traffic. If it does and it's good you might want to park it.
I say that making $XXX/day with parking domains alone.

There might be some risk but I've moved new parked domains to development several times with no SE penalties.
If it has been previously developed and has some incoming liks or PR I wouldn't park.