If a website experiences a sudden drop in Yandex search rankings, and Yandex Webmaster shows no manual actions, what is a likely initial diagnostic step?

If a website experiences a sudden drop in Yandex search rankings and Yandex Webmaster shows no manual actions, a likely initial diagnostic step is to investigate recent website changes and technical SEO factors. This involves auditing recent deployments or updates to the website's code, content, or structure to identify any unintended consequences that might negatively impact Yandex's ability to crawl, index, or understand the site. Specifically, check for changes such as alterations to the robots.txt file that could unintentionally block important pages, modifications to the site's navigation or internal linking structure that might hinder crawlability, the introduction of new or modified meta tags or structured data that could be misinterpreted, or the deployment of new code that introduces technical errors (e.g., JavaScript rendering issues, slow loading speeds, or mobile compatibility problems). Also, it's important to verify that critical pages are still indexable using the 'URL inspection' tool in Yandex Webmaster. Rule out algorithmic changes by researching recent Yandex algorithm updates that may be affecting the site. Monitoring server logs to identify crawling issues or server errors that Yandexbot may be encountering is also crucial.