I have a relatively authoritative domain. In particular one of my directories is the authoritative source on one topic, getting the most search traffic. They even generally outrank a well-known brand with a more powerful domain. If I add any new pages in that directory they instantly rank well. The directory has a lot of good links including about 2K from Wiki, Vice, DailyMail, Independent, The Telegraph, The Federal Reserve, Lad Bible etc.

Recently I started a new feature on the site in a new directory. The pages don't rank well. I just checked out the Google Search Console for the directory and there are spikes of impressions for it and then next to nothing:

https://i.ibb.co/hsb0VTZ/Screenshot-at-2019-11-25-07-35-56.png

N.B. all of the pages in the new directory have good, unique content in them. However, the holding directory's page has none, which I should get on to ASAP.

This is exactly the same as I've seen for sandboxed websites.

Any insights, experiences?