Professional web designers: Sites taken down prior to relaunch - why?

"Our new, improved web site will be launched Real Soon Now"

[tschild]

Here is one thing that I often wonder about. As someone who does not design/redesign web sites for a living I'd like from those who do.

When checking sites in a directory I edit in, for quality control, I often see sites where the content has been taken down and replaced by a notice to the effect "The web site of $company/$association/$administration is being redesigned - just wait a little for a site that's better than it ever was."

Now I am not talking about the tricks of our friends the domain hijackers (putting up such a page to mask the fact that a lapsed domain registration has been grabbed). In the cases that I refer to whois proves that the domain owner has stayed the same, and when I look a few weeks/months later often the new site is up.

I only wonder why the site owner in concert with their web designer do

1. take old site down
2. design new site
3. upload new site

instead of the more commonsensical

1. design new site
2. take old site down
3. upload new site

Of course the major players on the Web (the sites that earn real money) invariably follow the second sequence, aiming for the absolute minimum of downtime.

Why do a lot of the other sites (mostly brochure-type sites) follow the first sequence? It looks really stupid to me because

a) they lose the advantages of having a web site for some time
b) other sites who link to them, notably directories and such, are bound to drop the link when they become aware of the placeholder page, on the cynical understanding that on the Web coming soon in most cases means stone cold dead

[MatthewHSE]

I'd guess that it has to do mainly with marketing approaches changing. For instance, Boss goes to Webmaster and says "Look, we're changing everything here and we've got to take down the old info right away . . . you'll have the new info soon." Webmaster looks at the site, sees that the old info is all over the place, it has to be down immediately, but there's nothing to replace it with . . . what else can he do?

[zulufox]

Its ALWAYS because of management.

If you were selling blue widgets but now are going to start selling black gizmos, the company sometimes closes down blue widget sales/production to shift all its focus to transfering to black gizmos

[pleeker]

This usually happens when the info. on the site is no longer accurate and must be taken down right away. It's often the case when new ownership or management comes along and wants a wholesale change in the company's brand / direction.

[ControlEngineer]

It can happen when a company has a site that must be frequently maintained -- lastest product information, etc. The company hits hard times, has to get rid of the people who maintian the site or provide information. They don't want to say "sorry, we are almost broke" on the website, so they come up with some other excuse. Later, when somebody buys what's left, the new management or owners put up a site that reflects the new business.

[ergophobe]

I have to agree with tschild - the reasons everyone gives for why this is usually true, don't usually apply when I come across this. It is typically, as he says, brochure-style sites who, eventually end up right back up with essentially the same content and a different look.

My theory is that many of these sites are hobbyist sites disguised as businesses. They are taking in virtually no money. The person gets sick of them and decides to take it down during redesign because it isn't actually doing anything. They hope that if they get the look right, it will suddenly become the money-making machine they always knew it would be.