Honestly, sending visitors to a site that they aren’t expecting or don’t want to go to in the first place is a REALLY bad idea, people don’t like being deceived. Just remember, everyone is always one click away from leaving your site and not coming back.
Your best option would be to create a basic index.html file with something like:
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Down for maintenance, we will be back online on the [whatever date]
Sorry for any inconvenience.
In the meantime please feel free to have a look at our forum.
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Make the word “forum” the link that open in the SAME tab/window and keep the whole thing simple, people don’t care why your down and after reading that you are will lose almost all interest in staying on your site.
Good luck mate.
