Search Console or New Sites in Danger?

[Ghoztseo]

I had this Search Console issue. It had a surge of impressions and suddenly dropped to 1 - 4 impressions per day. What this could be though? I have posted the stats as a reference.

Site was launched in January 30th of 2025 with 400 pages.

• Tech Stack: Next JS (Static Pages without SSG)
• Sitemap: Yes (Fully updated)
• Robots.txt: Well optimized
• Pages now: ~520
• Indexed: 510
• Total Pageviews: 600~
• Total users: 142 so far

Automated + Manual workflow

No crawling issues because structured the UX almost perfectly and well balanced internlinking structure that prioritizing crawling budget + I managed to do this manually.

Primary SEO strategy was : Link clusters + Meta optimization. (nothing fancy) and will do outreach later.

Once the site was launched:

• on the 2nd day: Site got 150 impressions
• 3rd Day: 1,044 Impressions
• 4th Day: 3,827 Impressions
• 5th Day: 7,705 Impressions
• 6th Day: 9,794 Impressions
• 8th Day: 1,204 Impressions
• 9th day - Right now as of 02.23.2025 - Receiving 1 - 4 impressions.

Initially I thought this was a honeymoon period :3 yeah this happens to a lotta site, but sudden drop makes me itch my head, and I was consoling myself that this could be sandbox issue due to new site and producing higher amount of pages.

But, recently lots of people I knew in SEO industry and small business owners says the same, even my competitors site were drastically reduced in terms of organic traffics. I was checked in their core update, and yet there were no update though.

What just happened? Keep this thread alive, and you guys can share your insights? This would help others too?

 

[tazarbm]

Initially I thought this was a honeymoon period :3 yeah this happens to a lotta site

it can still be honeymoon. When it comes to SEO the honeymoon can last from 1 to 4 weeks from my experience, so 9 days fits within the known pattern...

but sudden drop makes me itch my head,

all honeymoons (that I've seen) end in sudden drops, so nothing unusual here

and I was consoling myself that this could be sandbox issue due to new site

from my experience sandbox means that you get zero impressions and zero clicks from day 1 of launching a website. You already got both impressions and clicks, so it doesn't look like sandbox... at least not the sandbox variant that I know of. If there are different types of sanboxes well, I guess this could be one of them

producing higher amount of pages.

the 400 initial pages could indeed be too many... I mean, there are too many for sure (new sites do get penalized for such high number of content published in a short period of time), but since these were all published before the site got launched and you already managed to get traffic for a week, I think they're not the reason for your drop.

But, recently lots of people I knew in SEO industry and small business owners says the same, even my competitors site were drastically reduced in terms of organic traffics. I was checked in their core update, and yet there were no update though.

sometimes, updates are being announced 1-2 weeks AFTER they have already kicked in, so it's still possible that you've been the victim of the latest (unannounced yet) google update.

Actually, since your competitors got wrecked too this is most likely what's happened to your site.

Based on all of these, I see 2 potential causes for your issue:

- honeymoon as you call it
- (unannounced yet) google update

My recommendation is to keep working on your site as usual (just slow the content publishing down a little) and - if after the update ends (should be in 2 months tops) - you still don't recover or at least see some slow growth (in terms of impressions and rankings, not necessarily in clicks) then you've most likely been affected by the update.

If no update is confirmed within 2 months it means you're targeting a competitive niche and that you won't see any improvement / recovery for at least few more months. At least that's how I feel, but feel free to prove me wrong if you have a better theory!

And if you're not in a tough niche and no update is confirmed either then most likely your batch of 400 pages published within a week (or however many days it was) it's probably why you got screwed. And if that's the problem, I don't know how you can recover (maybe delete some 200-300 of those pages?)... But I don't think that's the case, so I'll stick either to the google update or the common honeymoon behaviour for now...

 

[alternatesword]

What's your current content creation plan? Are you still adding new pages?

Try to track the queries manually for which you got impressions that are still in the top 100.

 

[Ghoztseo]

it can still be honeymoon. When it comes to SEO the honeymoon can last from 1 to 4 weeks from my experience, so 9 days fits within the known pattern...


all honeymoons (that I've seen) end in sudden drops, so nothing unusual here


from my experience sandbox means that you get zero impressions and zero clicks from day 1 of launching a website. You already got both impressions and clicks, so it doesn't look like sandbox... at least not the sandbox variant that I know of. If there are different types of sanboxes well, I guess this could be one of them


the 400 initial pages could indeed be too many... I mean, there are too many for sure (new sites do get penalized for such high number of content published in a short period of time), but since these were all published before the site got launched and you already managed to get traffic for a week, I think they're not the reason for your drop.


sometimes, updates are being announced 1-2 weeks AFTER they have already kicked in, so it's still possible that you've been the victim of the latest (unannounced yet) google update.

Actually, since your competitors got wrecked too this is most likely what's happened to your site.

Based on all of these, I see 2 potential causes for your issue:

- honeymoon as you call it
- (unannounced yet) google update

My recommendation is to keep working on your site as usual (just slow the content publishing down a little) and - if after the update ends (should be in 2 months tops) - you still don't recover or at least see some slow growth (in terms of impressions and rankings, not necessarily in clicks) then you've most likely been affected by the update.

If no update is confirmed within 2 months it means you're targeting a competitive niche and that you won't see any improvement / recovery for at least few more months. At least that's how I feel, but feel free to prove me wrong if you have a better theory!

And if you're not in a tough niche and no update is confirmed either then most likely your batch of 400 pages published within a week (or however many days it was) it's probably why you got screwed. And if that's the problem, I don't know how you can recover (maybe delete some 200-300 of those pages?)... But I don't think that's the case, so I'll stick either to the google update or the common honeymoon behaviour for now...

First of all huge thanks to your reply @tazarbm

I'm targeting a competitive niche, and yet no penalized according to Search console. I keep thinking this could be an another update though. Site is a technically tool website, not typical blog niche, That's why I thought to publish with 400 pages, not only that, while I was developing each pages, I kept stacking up the pages in my local development server, and publish it to vercel under my main branch directly without drip-feeding.

This honeymoon periods maybe, a REAL thing xD, showing us the best and later on leading to disappointment. but my doubt is that lots of new sites got the same pattern though? getting quick impressions and sudden drops, have you came across similar issue with other website owners this year?

My competitors websites are crap, in terms of UI + Content + Tool itself, that's why I thought to make it right. Fixing a problem and making them for easier to access and experience.

Even though there are some SEO efforts needs to be done for the site? I'll keep polishing stuffs and let's see where this site leads to, developed for almost in a month.

Thanks again

 

[Ghoztseo]

What's your current content creation plan? Are you still adding new pages?

Try to track the queries manually for which you got impressions that are still in the top 100.

Thanks for your reply

My content creation plan is building tools, and adding content to it. like: how to use, what is.. and etc. Every pages are interlinked with the main hub that is easier access for users. Page Clustering was main strategy.

And Yes, I slowed down 5 pages everyday + consistently publishing.

I tried manual, and it was within 100 before that's why I got so much of impressions. Now no more. I don't see anything in the 100th.

 

[David Boost]

what is the ratio of informative pages and money pages? 60/40 or 80/20 ? or do you only publish informative content?

 

[alternatesword]

Thanks for your reply

My content creation plan is building tools, and adding content to it. like: how to use, what is.. and etc. Every pages are interlinked with the main hub that is easier access for users. Page Clustering was main strategy.

And Yes, I slowed down 5 pages everyday + consistently publishing.

I tried manual, and it was within 100 before that's why I got so much of impressions. Now no more. I don't see anything in the 100th.

Your content strategy looks good. Keep posting the content and try to do branding and PR in slow phase. Just like @tazarbm pointed out, there might be an update, so wait for a week before doing any off page.

 

[tazarbm]

This honeymoon periods maybe, a REAL thing xD, showing us the best and later on leading to disappointment. but my doubt is that lots of new sites got the same pattern though? getting quick impressions and sudden drops, have you came across similar issue with other website owners this year?

all the time! I don't know why google does this, but they do it to many new sits, so again, it's perfectly normal

 

[Titans]

You can wait for some more time. Google may be reevaluating your search results. Just keep publishing high-quality articles with proper internal linking. If needed, add some quality links and it may help in increasing the authority of your website.

 

[Monsterer]

500+ pages within 2 months is not possible to index and crawl I think as a early stage

As it is a tool-related website means then you make your content with Video description instead of the texts because content creation is the main factor nowadays so be focus on the contents

In this situation you wont need to compare your site with your competitors just optimize every page with complete ON page and technical SEO because as fast as loading speed you get good results so just work on your page contents again so you can see the impressions raise

 

[GeeLark AI]

I had this Search Console issue. It had a surge of impressions and suddenly dropped to 1 - 4 impressions per day. What this could be though? I have posted the stats as a reference.

Site was launched in January 30th of 2025 with 400 pages.

• Tech Stack: Next JS (Static Pages without SSG)
• Sitemap: Yes (Fully updated)
• Robots.txt: Well optimized
• Pages now: ~520
• Indexed: 510
• Total Pageviews: 600~
• Total users: 142 so far

Automated + Manual workflow

No crawling issues because structured the UX almost perfectly and well balanced internlinking structure that prioritizing crawling budget + I managed to do this manually.

Primary SEO strategy was : Link clusters + Meta optimization. (nothing fancy) and will do outreach later.

Once the site was launched:

• on the 2nd day: Site got 150 impressions
• 3rd Day: 1,044 Impressions
• 4th Day: 3,827 Impressions
• 5th Day: 7,705 Impressions
• 6th Day: 9,794 Impressions
• 8th Day: 1,204 Impressions
• 9th day - Right now as of 02.23.2025 - Receiving 1 - 4 impressions.

Initially I thought this was a honeymoon period :3 yeah this happens to a lotta site, but sudden drop makes me itch my head, and I was consoling myself that this could be sandbox issue due to new site and producing higher amount of pages.

But, recently lots of people I knew in SEO industry and small business owners says the same, even my competitors site were drastically reduced in terms of organic traffics. I was checked in their core update, and yet there were no update though.

What just happened? Keep this thread alive, and you guys can share your insights? This would help others too?

The sudden drop might be Google reassessing your site's authority and relevance.

Since others are seeing the same issue, it’s likely not just you.

Keep following if there any new update, and keep an eye on GSC for any insights.

 

[GenesisOne]

If you posted all the pages at once, that will be your answer.

 

[Ghoztseo]

The sudden drop might be Google reassessing your site's authority and relevance.

Since others are seeing the same issue, it’s likely not just you.

Keep following if there any new update, and keep an eye on GSC for any insights.

Hmm I guess yes, Keep an eye on this everyday, but SEO efforts (on-page optimization) and publishing ~5 pages consistently.

what is the ratio of informative pages and money pages? 60/40 or 80/20 ? or do you only publish informative content?

There are no separation in info or money pages. Tool pages, and written content how to use them and etc.

Your content strategy looks good. Keep posting the content and try to do branding and PR in slow phase. Just like @tazarbm pointed out, there might be an update, so wait for a week before doing any off page.

Exactly! I didn't stop posting pages, but slowed down the entire process. However, I run everything behind in a automation workflow. Let's wait for a week or even few months and see, but reversing seem is difficult if anything goes wrong lol.

all the time! I don't know why google does this, but they do it to many new sits, so again, it's perfectly normal

Aye, I didn't overcome yet from that sudden drops lol xD

500+ pages within 2 months is not possible to index and crawl I think as a early stage

As it is a tool-related website means then you make your content with Video description instead of the texts because content creation is the main factor nowadays so be focus on the contents

In this situation you wont need to compare your site with your competitors just optimize every page with complete ON page and technical SEO because as fast as loading speed you get good results so just work on your page contents again so you can see the impressions raise

Just 1 month :3 and still pages are getting indexed without a problem, and had few errors like 3 404 pages, and I fixed those errors. Yes, you absolutely correct, but creating video content seems a big hurdle for me right now. atleast I need to see a small success to double down.

I was planning this site for 1 month, from UX perspective, and also speed perspective. That's why I chose to go with Next JS instead of going with WordPress or any other CMS platforms. I configured everything for edge caches that serves the content lightning fast. Trust me, that's so much fast.

If you posted all the pages at once, that will be your answer.

ahem, that might be the case but since this is a effort from different context, Launched the site with 400 pages, and consistently posting unique pages won't harm right? I mean in logical perspective. This is not a blog, but a combination of tools. so users look for tools they need to solve their problems. Let's see :3

 

[Ghoztseo]

Fun fact :3 ranking for 148 keywords. -_-

 

[Ghoztseo]

Guys! It's a Google Update: https://searchengineland.com/google-march-2025-core-update-rolling-out-now-453253 That's why site impressions gone dark.

 

[anayijera435]

Whether it’s Google Search Console or a new website, following SEO best practices and monitoring regularly can help reduce risk and ensure the health of your website.

 

[FungChenDigital]

I think you need to give it some time and keep doing content writing and you should be fine