🔍 Understanding the Quota Error
You may see a quota limit error in Site Audit — or across other Search Atlas features — even when your account dashboard shows available quota remaining. This is a common source of confusion, and the fix is straightforward once you understand why it happens.
The error does not mean your overall account quota is exhausted. It means that your active Site Audit projects are collectively holding quota allocation that has not yet been released. Search Atlas reserves quota for each audit you create, whether that audit is actively crawling or sitting idle.
📊 Why Held Quota Causes Errors
When you create a Site Audit project, the system pre-allocates a portion of your quota to that project based on its configured crawl size. This reserved quota counts against your available limit even if the audit has already finished or is no longer needed. As a result:
- Your account summary may show remaining credits, but those credits are locked to existing audit projects.
- Attempting to run a new audit, re-crawl a site, or use quota-dependent features triggers an error because no free quota is available to assign.
- The issue compounds if you have multiple completed or unused audits still active in your project list.
🗑️ How to Fix It: Delete Unused Site Audits
The fastest way to resolve quota limit errors is to delete Site Audit projects you no longer need. Deleting a project immediately releases its reserved quota back to your account pool, making it available for new audits and other features.
- Log in to your Search Atlas account.
- Navigate to the Site Audit section of the platform.
- Open your list of existing audit projects.
- Review each project and identify audits that are completed, outdated, or no longer relevant to your workflow.
- Select the audit project you want to remove and click the Delete option.
- Confirm the deletion when prompted.
- Repeat for any additional unused audits.
Once deleted, the quota previously held by those projects is freed immediately. You should be able to create new audits or use other quota-dependent features without errors.
💡 Best Practices to Avoid Future Quota Errors
Keeping your Site Audit project list tidy prevents this issue from recurring. Follow these habits to stay within your quota limits:
- Delete audits after actioning results. Once you have reviewed an audit's findings and made your site improvements, delete the project to free up quota for future crawls.
- Avoid creating duplicate audits. If you need to re-crawl a site, consider deleting the existing audit project first rather than creating a new one alongside it.
- Periodically review your active audit list. Make it a habit to remove stale or redundant projects before they accumulate and exhaust your available quota.
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.