Yet another search engine question

[TheOPC]

I have what I'll call a "project" I am currently working on. I have the domain name, and the website is built (less the registration database, which will surely be a nightmare). I expect the "project" will enter the marketing phase in early May.

Should I begin submitting to search engines and starting the appropriate linking campaign now or should I wait until the project officially launches. Is there an advantage to either?

[kingcobra]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "official" launch but if the site is live then the sooner you start promoting it the better. There's no need to submit to search engines as they will find you naturally although submitting a site map is always a good idea. You can't hurt yourself here as any improvements will be indexed with each regular crawl. Cut the ribbon now though man

[TheOPC]

Originally Posted by kingcobra

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "official" launch but if the site is live then the sooner you start promoting it the better. There's no need to submit to search engines as they will find you naturally although submitting a site map is always a good idea. You can't hurt yourself here as any improvements will be indexed with each regular crawl. Cut the ribbon now though man

Do u think I should "nofollow" the pages that are incomplete, such as the registration page that is lacking a database or does that really not matter?

[kingcobra]

As long as the pages are up that you are linking to then that's fine. If not then you can wait to link them. I wouldn't bother with nofollow since that just keeps pagerank from passing, not the links actually being followed by the bots. If you really need to you can keep the bots away by way of a meta tag but it's easier just not to make the link live in the first place. No database isn't a problem though as this just means no stuff there other than the shell which is fine.

[TheOPC]

Originally Posted by kingcobra

As long as the pages are up that you are linking to then that's fine. If not then you can wait to link them. I wouldn't bother with nofollow since that just keeps pagerank from passing, not the links actually being followed by the bots. If you really need to you can keep the bots away by way of a meta tag but it's easier just not to make the link live in the first place. No database isn't a problem though as this just means no stuff there other than the shell which is fine.

Again, thank you for the insight. This "project" is huge and I'm not wanting to mis-step

[pauljones]

Originally Posted by TheOPC

Do u think I should "nofollow" the pages that are incomplete, such as the registration page that is lacking a database or does that really not matter?

uh you should nofollow the registration page, contact page etc anyway and channel the juice to the main site information pages imo. google "pagerank sculpting" for some more info.

[Randy]

Originally Posted by pauljones

uh you should nofollow the registration page, contact page etc anyway and channel the juice to the main site information pages imo. google "pagerank sculpting" for some more info.

This is a myth. The benefit from doing this would be negligible, if any benefit from it exists at all.

[kingcobra]

Originally Posted by Randy

This is a myth. The benefit from doing this would be negligible, if any benefit from it exists at all.

I've experimented with this actually and I've found that it's actually better to spread it around naturally. Not that it really matters that much as Randy says. Lots of do follow internal links are healthy and blocking the juice with internal no follows isn't rewarded nor is what the nofollow tag was designed to be for, which is to prevent outflows of juice to other sites in order that PR not be outflowed. I've also found that outflowing PR doesn't hurt you either and of course it wouldn't help the other sites to do so but this is your own pages we're talking about and again it's healthy to have it circulating around much like a bloodstream.

[JasonDuke]

Read what KC has to say - it's sage advice

[pauljones]

Originally Posted by Randy

This is a myth. The benefit from doing this would be negligible, if any benefit from it exists at all.

Uh it's not a myth fwiw, I recall Matt Cutts commenting on it (can't find the link, but he was on about PR sculpting). It's not gonna give you much of an edge, but an edge is an edge if building PR on particular areas/pages of your site is what you want, for whatever reason.