SEO question

[markRg]

Hello,

I'm launching a website in a moderately competitive niche. At first, Google gives a little traffic, but after about 3 weeks, the traffic drops to zero. I wait for six months, and the traffic still doesn't come.
Usually, I would just wait, and the traffic would start to grow.

My question is: how do you handle this situation? Do you start buying links?
Or is it already pointless and better to forget about it?

Thanks.

[not2easy]

I would double down on fresh content. They've seen what you put out there and with new or fresh content you could see much more difference than buying links.

There is a discussion on that topic that started last year and offers some insights on link building today: [webmasterworld.com...]

[Taran]

I would definitely not abandon the project yet. New domains bounce around for months before anything stable happens. One of my sites looked completely dead for a while and then slowly started moving again.

The main issue ended up being page hierarchy and indexing. So I worked with TESSA in North Virginia to review the setup and they helped clean up the page structure and remove a few indexing problems that were hiding important pages. After that Google gradually started picking the content up again.

[Mugiwara]

Create content regularly and look for backlinks in parallel. A strong backlink is better than 50 weak spammy backlinks. Don't buy the packages sold on Fiverr and those type of sites.

[jonsnow]

There could be a lots of reason of zero traffic on a site. You should have to find yours. In dept SEO AUDIT is the only way to find real reason of zero traffic.
Reason could be anything that we can't think and should not have to take action before knowing.

It could be -

• Indexing
  
• Content conversion
  
• Responsiveness
  
• Backlinking
  
• Absence of Topical Authority
  
• or anything else

Many sites give you SEO AUDIT report in 5 minutes of 20 factors but Google sees 200 factors to rank a site.

[RedBar]

Many sites give you SEO AUDIT report in 5 minutes of 20 factors but Google sees 200 factors to rank a site.

That was many, many years ago and there used to be an official document outlining it however this has since been superceded.

[Kendo]

New web sites tend to get attention until they get some stats. What happens after that is almost always downhill.

[i rahulgupta]

Now search engines are moving toward AI-powered experiences, especially Google after the recent Google I/O announcements. So, focus on creating valuable content regularly instead of worrying whether it is AI-written or human-written.

Google is not trying to identify if content is written by AI or humans.

As always, the priority is simple:
Your content should provide real value to users.

[fylingRI]

I’ve seen this happen quite a few times with newer sites over the last 1–2 years.
Google gives the site a bit of initial visibility, you get some impressions or even traffic for 2–3 weeks, and then suddenly everything drops off. In many cases it’s basically Google testing the site first before deciding whether it actually trusts it long-term.
Personally, I wouldn’t immediately start buying random backlinks. That used to work much better years ago than it does now. Low-quality link packages, Fiverr gigs, PBN spam etc. can easily make things worse, especially for a fresh domain.

What I usually do instead is look at a few things first:

* Are the pages still indexed?
* Do impressions still appear in Search Console, even if clicks are gone?
* Does the site have real topical depth, or just SEO-style articles?
* Is there any brand presence outside Google?

One thing I’ve noticed recently is that Google seems to trust websites more when they already get signals from outside search:

* forum mentions,
* Reddit,
* social traffic,
* branded searches,
* repeat visitors,
* niche community engagement.

So instead of throwing money into bulk links, I’d rather:

* improve the best pages,
* strengthen internal linking,
* make the content more unique/opinionated/useful,
* and try to get a few real niche mentions or contextual links.

Even a handful of strong relevant links can do more than hundreds of cheap ones.
Also worth checking whether the domain has old spam history. I’ve seen domains that were previously hacked or abused for casino/pharma spam struggle for months afterward, even after cleanup.

In my opinion, if the site is completely dead after 6+ months with:

* zero impressions,
* no keyword movement,
* no indexing growth,
* no signs of recovery at all,

then I’d seriously reconsider the niche, the domain, or the overall strategy.

But a drop after the first few weeks alone is definitely not uncommon anymore. I wouldn’t treat that as a “game over” signal by itself.

[Whitey]

One thing the recent DOJ disclosures reinforced for me is that Google appears far more focused on measuring user preference than many SEOs assumed.

If a new site gets an initial burst of visibility and then fades away, that may not necessarily be a link, content or technical issue. It could simply be that Google's systems didn't see enough evidence that users preferred the site over existing alternatives when given the opportunity.

That shifts the question from "How do I rank?" to "Why would users choose me?"

For newer sites especially, I'd be paying attention to signs of genuine audience interest: branded searches, repeat visitors, direct traffic, recommendations, mentions in communities, and whether users actively seek the site out again.

The SEO fundamentals still matter, but they may increasingly be the entry ticket rather than the deciding factor.