I suppose if all the users go on the site intentionally wanting to take part in a DDoS, then sure it’s not a botnet. But that’s not reality.
Try ignoring what the payload is as it does not really matter in defining what is or isn't a botnet (though botnets typically imply malicious or sketchy payloads).
In regards to it being a DDoS it leans more in the yes direction due to the intent of it, but it also sites sending traffic to other sites is part of the web. You can embed things from other sites like images and then those others sites will fulfill those requests. The web didn't restrict pages to only send requests and load content from the same domain.