Under contructions pages can be the kiss of death for search engines. Jen Heil explains:

Article >> The Problem with Under Construction Pages

These articles are helpful, I didn't know that... thanks.

Glad you them...! Clients seem to like them. As long as that's the case we'll continue to write them.

Well I guess it's better for your visitors to experience strange changing graphics and site adjustments than placing a construction page up for a couple hours...

But doesn't 4.0 have a NEW option to activate a construction page now? Why is that if they're so bad?

Just from what I have read, if you are down for a couple of hours it may not be sooo bad. The last company I worked for had a site that had to go down -- the php backend had been "violated." We set up a static with an "soon to be rereleased page" with a field for their email address -- and a commitment there to email as soon as the site was back up. Pretty nice response, actually. But that was short term. I think the article is talking more about getting server space, getting the DNS set up, and then making an under construction page that is there during the whole development cycle (like two months or weeks or something.)

Like my site is now. Our previous host vanished into thin air, so we pointed to MonsterCommerce a little earlier than planned. Out of my control, really, at this point. But I think the under construction page in 4.0, if used correctly, could prevent users from having a wildly changing shopping continuum. The question becomes -- during that time you are down, how do you encourage those viewers to come back?

I agree with you. An "Under Contruction Page" will not kill you with search engines if you post the UC page for short durations. One thing you may want to do is post a link at the bottom of the page so that GoogleBot can still find his way inside the site... while keeping the majority of the users out.

Thanks for the info ebenson & Captain. I'll make sure that if I use a UC page during graphic changes, etc. that I place a link that most people won't see for GoogleBot to follow.