Whether you are building a new site or working on an existing one, you sometimes need to show visitors a temporary page. Doing it the wrong way can hurt your search rankings.
Coming soon or maintenance?
- Coming soon: the site is not launched yet. You want to collect emails and build anticipation.
- Maintenance: the site exists and is temporarily unavailable. You want search engines to come back later without dropping your pages.
The SEO detail that matters: HTTP 503
During maintenance, the page should answer with a 503 Service Unavailable status and a Retry-After header. It tells search engines the situation is temporary. A normal 200 page saying “under maintenance” could be indexed in place of your real content.
What a good coming soon page includes
- Your logo and a clear sentence about what is coming.
- A countdown to the launch date.
- An email field to be notified at launch, with spam protection.
- Social and contact links.
- Pages that stay open, like your legal notice and privacy policy.
Keep working while visitors wait
Logged-in editors should see the real site. For clients, a secret preview link avoids creating accounts for them.
Setting it up
Soonpage offers three modes (off, coming soon, maintenance with 503 + Retry-After), a modern design with gradients or your own image, a countdown, email collection with CSV export, a secret client link and a reminder in the admin bar. See the live coming soon page.
After launch
Use an announcement bar to tell visitors about the new site, and email everyone who subscribed.
Frequently asked questions
Does maintenance mode hurt SEO?
Not if the page returns a 503 status with a Retry-After header, which tells search engines to come back later.
Can I keep working on the site?
Yes. Logged-in editors see the real site, and clients can use a secret preview link.
Can I collect emails before launch?
Yes, with a built-in form, spam protection and CSV export.