## **🔍 What This Article Covers**

If you have connected WordPress to Search Atlas and your content is not publishing or syncing correctly, this guide will walk you through the most common causes and the exact steps to resolve them. We will also explain how to escalate to our engineering team if standard troubleshooting does not fix the problem.

## **⚙️ How WordPress CMS Sync Works**

Search Atlas connects to your WordPress site through the Search Atlas plugin. When you publish or update content from **Content Genius** (Left sidebar → Content → Content Genius), Search Atlas sends that content to WordPress using an authenticated connection. If that connection breaks or WordPress rejects the request, the sync fails and your changes will not appear on your site.

## **⚠️ Common Reasons Sync Fails**

WordPress sync issues typically fall into one of these categories:

- **Plugin authentication failure** — The connection token between Search Atlas and your WordPress site has expired or was revoked.
- **WordPress plugin outdated** — You are running an older version of the Search Atlas plugin that is no longer compatible.
- **Security plugin blocking requests** — A firewall, security plugin, or server-level rule is blocking Search Atlas API requests.
- **Missing or changed credentials** — Your WordPress admin password, application password, or site URL has changed since the initial connection.
- **Server timeout or resource limits** — Your WordPress server is rejecting long-running requests, which can happen with large articles or bulk publishing.

## **🚀 Step-by-Step Troubleshooting**

Follow these steps in order. After each step, try syncing a single article to see if the issue is resolved.

1. **Verify your WordPress site URL** — In Search Atlas, go to your CMS connection settings and confirm the site URL matches exactly what you see in your browser, including `https://` and no trailing slash.
2. **Update the Search Atlas plugin** — Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard, navigate to Plugins, and make sure the Search Atlas plugin is updated to the latest version. If an update is available, install it and reconnect.
3. **Re-authenticate the connection** — Disconnect WordPress from within Search Atlas, then reconnect it fresh. This generates a new authentication token and resolves most stale-credential issues.
4. **Check for security plugin interference** — Temporarily disable any WordPress security or firewall plugins (such as Wordfence, Sucuri, or Cloudflare WAF), then attempt a sync. If it succeeds, whitelist the Search Atlas plugin or API endpoints in your security tool.
5. **Test with a simple article** — Create a short test article in Content Genius and try publishing it. If a simple article publishes but a larger one does not, the issue is likely a server timeout. Contact your hosting provider to increase PHP `max_execution_time` and `memory_limit`.
6. **Check WordPress permalinks** — In WordPress admin, go to Settings → Permalinks and click **Save Changes** even if you have not modified anything. This refreshes WordPress rewrite rules and can resolve hidden routing issues.

## **📊 How to Confirm Sync Is Actually Working**

After completing the troubleshooting steps, do not rely solely on the success message inside Search Atlas. Open your WordPress site in a new browser tab and verify that:

- The article appears in your WordPress Posts or Pages list.
- The title, body content, and meta description match what you published.
- The published date and author are correct.
- Any images or media included in the article uploaded successfully.

If Search Atlas shows a success message but the content is missing or incomplete in WordPress, the sync is partially failing. Proceed to the escalation steps below.

## **💡 What We Fixed Recently**

Our engineering team has resolved several known issues related to WordPress sync. If you experienced problems in the past and were told they were fixed but the issue persists, it is possible that a different root cause is now in play. Recent fixes include:

- **Plugin authentication failures** that prevented Content Genius and Content Sync from connecting to WordPress independently of OTTO.
- **Silent sync failures** — the system previously did not always surface errors when a sync failed. It now reports failures clearly so you and our team can act on them.
- **Brand Vault errors** — some sync attempts failed with "No brand vault found" due to a data configuration issue. This has been corrected.

Because multiple issues shared similar error messages, it was possible for one fix to resolve your case while a separate, underlying issue remained. If you are still seeing problems, the fastest path to resolution is the escalation process below.

## **🛠️ Escalating to Engineering**

If you have completed every troubleshooting step above and WordPress sync is still not working, our engineering team needs specific information to investigate efficiently. When you contact support, provide the following:

- Your WordPress site URL.
- The version of the Search Atlas plugin installed on your WordPress site.
- The exact name of the article or articles that failed to sync.
- The date and time (including your timezone) of the most recent failed sync attempt.
- A screenshot of any error message you see, either in Search Atlas or in WordPress.
- The name of any security plugins running on your WordPress site.

With this information, our team can trace the exact request, identify where it is failing, and push a fix or configuration change.

## **💬 Still Need Help?**

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type **human teammate** to be connected with a member of our team.