🤖 What Is OTTO SEO Activation?
OTTO SEO is Search Atlas's AI-powered SEO automation engine. Before OTTO can begin optimizing your site, it must complete an initial crawl of your domain to gather data about your pages, structure, and existing SEO signals. Activation is the process of connecting your domain to OTTO and allowing it to complete this crawl.
🚀 How to Activate OTTO for Your Domain
- In the left sidebar, click OTTO SEO, then open SEO Automation (URL: /seo-automation-v3).
- In the top area of the page, locate the domain selector or click Add Site if your domain has not been added yet.
- Enter your domain (for example, herculesmovingsolutions.com or a1appliance-home-services.com) and confirm.
- Click the Activate OTTO button next to your domain.
- Follow any on-screen prompts to authorise the connection, such as installing the Search Atlas WordPress plugin or verifying site ownership.
- Once authorisation is confirmed, OTTO will begin the initial crawl automatically.
⏳ Understanding the Initial Crawl
The initial crawl is the first step OTTO takes after activation. During this phase, OTTO scans every accessible page on your domain to build a complete SEO baseline. Here is what to expect:
- Duration: The crawl typically takes between 15 minutes and several hours, depending on the size of your site. Larger sites with thousands of pages may take longer.
- Status indicator: You will see a progress bar or status label such as Crawling, Processing, or Ready next to your domain on the OTTO SEO page.
- No action needed: You do not need to stay on the page. The crawl continues in the background and you will be able to see results once it completes.
- Multiple domains: Each domain you activate goes through its own independent crawl. Activating two domains (for example, herculesmovingsolutions.com and a1appliance-home-services.com) means both will crawl simultaneously without affecting each other.
✅ What Happens After the Crawl Completes
Once the initial crawl finishes, OTTO's activation status changes to Active or Ready. At this point:
- OTTO will display a full list of SEO recommendations, optimisations, and automation opportunities for your domain.
- You can review and approve individual changes or enable automatic deployments.
- OTTO will continue to monitor your site and re-crawl pages as content changes over time.
🛠️ Troubleshooting Activation Issues
If OTTO does not activate or the crawl appears stuck, work through the following checks:
- Plugin or verification not completed: Return to the OTTO SEO page and confirm that the connection step is fully completed. An incomplete authorisation will prevent the crawl from starting.
- Domain entered incorrectly: Make sure you entered the domain without a trailing slash and with the correct protocol (use the root domain, not a subfolder URL).
- Crawl stuck for more than 24 hours: If the status has not changed after a full day, try removing the domain and re-adding it. Then repeat the activation steps.
- Site is blocking crawlers: Check that your robots.txt file is not blocking Search Atlas or common crawl bots. Temporary blocks will prevent OTTO from completing the crawl.
- Activating multiple domains: Each domain must be activated separately. Confirm that both domains show an Active or Crawling status on the OTTO SEO page.
💡 Tips for a Smooth Activation
- Make sure your site is publicly accessible before activating. Domains behind a password or maintenance mode cannot be crawled.
- For WordPress sites, installing the Search Atlas plugin is the fastest way to complete authorisation and begin the crawl.
- If you are activating several domains at once, check back on the OTTO SEO page after a few hours to confirm all crawls have completed successfully.
💬 Need More 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.