http://www.launchsplash.com

What’s in a splash page? Normally just a blank white page with the words “Under Construction” or “Coming Soon”.  And if you’re a domain registrar, chances are your splash pages are loaded with hundreds of advertisements, links, and useless clutter.  GoDaddy comes to mind…

Although we as designers and developers could create fancy, beautiful, and dynamic splash pages complete with lights and sounds, it may not always be necessary or cost-efficient for our clients–especially if the page is going to be very temporary.  That’s when I stumbled upon LaunchSplash.  I was pleasantly surprised with its capabilities.

It’s completely web-based, so you don’t even have to fire up an editor and FTP client, or worry about hosting.  You really just do what the site says – enter your domain name and hit Create.  It offers a number of useful features including:

• Sign-up form so users can receive announcements of the upcoming website
• RSS feed to again keep users updated on the website status
• Integration of Feedburner & Google Analytics to already begin tracking your client base
• Domain mapping so you can point your domain to the splash page without using the default URL which is already pretty short (mydomain.launchsplash.com)
• 2 free launch pages

I’m not overly fond of the freebie design, but it’s adequate for a very temporary splash page.  Of course, you can upgrade for $5/month to use the premium designs.  Here is their demo.

I’ve created one splash page through them and was satisified with the results.  I would definitely use them again for another quick ‘n easy page.