Google gave my new site 2,500 impressions, then took 86% away. What I learned about new-domain SEO

I'm a solo dev building 1RM.fit, a workout tracker (Next.js web + React Native mobile). In May I started publishing SEO content — eventually ~60 articles. What happened next surprised me, and I haven't seen it written up much.

The honeymoon

For the first 4-6 weeks, Google was generous. My brand-new domain got test-ranked for 528 distinct queries in a single month — 2,533 impressions at an average position of ~37. Articles I'd published two weeks earlier were showing up on page 2-3 for real commercial queries. I thought the strategy was working.

The cliff

Then July: impressions dropped 86% (2,533 → 362). Same content. Same positions (~37 both months). Google simply stopped showing the site for three quarters of the queries it had been testing.