🤖 What Is an OTTO Site Scan?
When you activate OTTO on a website, OTTO automatically crawls your site to discover technical SEO issues — such as broken links, missing meta tags, slow pages, and crawlability errors. This scan gives OTTO the data it needs to begin suggesting and applying fixes.
🚀 How to Start a Site Scan
- Navigate to the OTTO section of the platform.
- If you have not connected a site yet, follow the on-screen prompts to add your website and verify ownership.
- Once your site is connected, OTTO will automatically initiate the first crawl. No manual trigger is required for the initial scan.
- To run a fresh crawl at any time, locate your site on the OTTO dashboard and use the option available to re-scan your property.
OTTO begins processing your site after the crawl is triggered. You can return to the OTTO dashboard to check on the status of your scan.
⏱️ How Long Does a Crawl Take?
Crawl duration depends on the size and complexity of your website. Larger sites with many pages will naturally take longer to fully process than smaller ones. You do not need to keep the browser window open while the crawl runs — OTTO processes the scan in the background, and your results will be ready when you return to the dashboard.
If your crawl appears to be taking an unexpectedly long time, it may be related to your site's size, server response times, or crawl configuration. See the troubleshooting section below for guidance.
📊 What Happens After the Crawl?
Once the scan is complete, OTTO will display the detected on-page and technical SEO issues it has found. You can review all findings directly inside the OTTO section of the platform. New scans can be triggered at any time to reflect recent changes you have made to the site.
💡 Tips for Faster, More Accurate Scans
- Submit a sitemap: Providing an XML sitemap helps OTTO discover all your pages more efficiently.
- Check robots.txt: Make sure your robots.txt file does not accidentally block OTTO from crawling important sections of your site.
- Avoid scanning during peak traffic: On very large sites, scheduling re-crawls during low-traffic periods can improve speed and reduce server load.
🛠️ Troubleshooting Common Crawl Issues
- Scan appears stuck: Wait some time for larger sites before assuming an issue. If there has been no progress after an extended wait, try refreshing the page or initiating a new scan.
- Pages not appearing in results: Check that your robots.txt is not blocking the crawler and that you have submitted an up-to-date sitemap.
- Crawl did not start: Confirm that your site is fully connected and ownership has been verified in the platform.
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.