A website owner reported a significant drop in search queries and clicks in Yandex Webmaster in early September. Out of 200 tracked queries, 181 saw a decline, and daily clicks fell from 2,740 to 88. The owner initially suspected a search engine penalty, as similar reports appeared in industry channels.
Investigation revealed that the site had migrated to a new domain three weeks prior. The drop in traffic was linked to the removal of bot-generated clicks that had artificially inflated statistics. Real CTR was 1.5–2%, while the inflated data showed 10–18%. The site did not actually lose traffic; it simply lost the bot-driven noise.
Technical issues also contributed to the perceived decline. Server timeouts occurred while uploading 5.9 GB of video files, causing Yandex to record 'OTHER' status codes for pages. Additionally, the owner found that single-point position checks were unreliable, showing high volatility within an hour, and shifted to using median values from three consecutive checks.
By September 27, Yandex support confirmed no penalties were applied. Traffic metrics recovered naturally, with daily impressions rising from 3,871 on September 19 to 24,546 on September 26. The owner emphasized that mass site changes should be paused during such periods to avoid complicating the diagnosis.
