Gomoku Saves the Day — Soosooland’s Traffic Explosion

1. New users suddenly started pouring in

In April 2026, six months after registering Soosooland on Google Search Console, something unexpected happened.
To be honest, I had been thinking Soosooland was dying. New users had dropped from 300 in December 2025, to around 200 in January and February, and then all the way down to just 100 in March.
Then on April 5th, the expected number of new users was 2 — but the actual number was 37. On April 6th, expected 2, actual 51. On April 7th, expected 1, actual 30. This trend has been going strong for ten days now. The Google Search Console data is even more dramatic. On April 4th, impressions were just 19 with 1 click. On April 5th, impressions jumped to 376 with 41 clicks — nearly a 20x increase in a single day. On April 6th, impressions hit 528 with 44 clicks. Numbers dip to about half on weekends, then climb back up during the week.
Over the past 28 days, the top-performing search keyword has been ‘Gomoku AI’, with 1,203 impressions and 169 clicks. Second was ‘Gomoku AI battle’ with 115 impressions and 26 clicks.

2. New difficulty levels added to Gomoku

Gomoku was never meant to be Soosooland’s main game. Soosooland launched in July with four original game series I hold the copyright to. But when I introduced the platform to friends, many said, “I’m not sure what to do here.” So in August, I added Gomoku — a game everyone knows and can pick up instantly.
Gomoku was essentially an afterthought on Soosooland. I made it casually, thinking that anyone who really wanted to play Gomoku could just go to another site. But when the player count suddenly spiked, I felt the urge to improve it.
So I added a new difficulty level where the user plays as White and the computer plays as Black and goes first. What had been 3 difficulty levels — Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced — became 4, with the addition of “Master.” (Google still shows “Soosooland Gomoku — 3 difficulty levels” in search results.) In Gomoku, going first gives you an advantage when players are evenly matched, so in Master mode, the computer takes the first move.

3. Added a banner linking to Soosooland

I also added a banner below the Gomoku board introducing other games on Soosooland: Word Game Worpuzz, Math Game Numzzle, Strategy Game Trinkle, Logic Game Baseball Game, and Fun Puzzle Playground Soosooland. It felt a little awkward to say “go play something else” to people who came just for Gomoku — but I worked up the courage to put it up. Then today I noticed visitors coming from Singapore, so I added a Korean/English toggle. When switched to English, the banner displays: Word Game, Math Game, Logic Game, Strategy Game, Fun Puzzle Playground Soosooland.

4. Testing the banner

While testing the banner today, I accidentally clicked on the Korean Baseball Game. I had always thought it was too rough to be proud of — “embarrassing, but I’ll put it up anyway.” But playing it today, I was surprised by how fun it actually was. I found myself hoping it does well too.
Google Analytics doesn’t update in real time, but by now Soosooland has probably crossed 2,000 total users.
Six months felt like a long time. I feel happy — but somehow it doesn’t feel real yet. There’s still a long way to go, so I’d better not get too carried away.

🪄 Dev log originally written in Korean | Translated with Claude

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Fun Puzzle Playground · Soosooland