I really don't know how to title the post but I need help with it. The situation - I have an article based website about home and garden. Of course, though I have lots of articles I don't have any traffic. So I decided to make my website different from other similar websites and while doing that I am watching what is going on. So...what I am doing right now: I write a good article, add my own original photos never posted before. Article on some little competitors theme. For example last time it had only 6000 results in google search which is very little for an English keyword yep? Then I make google index that page in webmaster and watch the keyword. My page appears on the 7th page of google search right after indexing (3 word keyword) and on the 3d page (4 word keyword). Which seems to be nice. But the next day it just disappears from search and never comes back! I don't do crazy seo, articles are natural, no keyword spam. Website is 1 year old. But domain authority (or trust) 1 only according to checkers. So the question is, is that normal? What can be wrong? Please help...need your experience and ideas...Do you think I should test those articles with getting natural links to them?
Do focus on quality link building for your website. As you have said you have lots of articles then make use of that articles for generating traffic for your website you can submit those few articles to article directories site and also you can share your articles link in social bookmarking site. Maybe this will help your keywords to rank higher.
Your website isn't credible enough or isn't ranking really strong to keep its ranking. Focus on building authority on your sites first. make sure you are also creating more posts relevant to a specific niche. Also, work on some offpage link building in relevant forums, connect with audience in social media pages, etc.