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I've got a site that is going live in a couple of weeks. All of the content is not complete, but is being added to the database each hour.
Is there a negative effect if Google or other search engines find the site before it's "ready enough"? Will they just assume it's a barren shell and return in six months?
How complete should a site be before you invite the search engines in?
You should have the basic site in place, something more than just a "coming soon" parking page. It sounds like you have that already so you should be good to go at your launch date in two weeks.
The only negative problems you might have would be radical changes to the internal navigation or URL structure but hopeful you've already dealt with that prior to going live with the site.
I would add that you have to check it first for broken links. Being the fact that the site is incomplete you may have links to pages without content or some are non-existent and broken links will not work in your favor. You can publish a 5page site and then add another 5-10pages 2 weeks later and that will give you a plus, if of course your content is worth anything.
