Should I start submitting before my website is live?
At Netpromote we were asked this question a few weeks back, and not for the first time either. Should I start submitting my URL even though I don’t have a website on it?
No chance!
I know the basis of the question is probably that the site owner has been told of the sandbox at Google and wants to be getting into the listings by the time their site is finished, but never, ever submit a domain that has no site at it. It’s SEO hari kari. Google will attempt 3 times to find a site there, and if it doesn’t your URL will be dropped. After that, it’s not clear how much it takes for your URL to be picked up again.
Same goes for other two big search engines. If they send their crawler to a site with no content they will drop the URL.
My best advice is to put together a small site of just a few pages covering all the main topics that will grace the pages of your fully developed site. Upload this site to the server and then submit to search engines. This way your initial listings will at least match what is going to be on the site, and you will actually get some listings, and maybe even some customers before your real site is live.
One other note, on this mini-intro site, don’t use phrases like “under construction” or “coming soon”. These are like raising red flags that show your site isn’t complete.
So, in summary: Build a small site and submit that. Don’t ever submit until you have some form of website live.