🔍 What Is Happening?

When the OTTO script is active on a Shopify store, some themes display unexpected or duplicate text on the homepage — often near the logo or top of the page. This happens because OTTO reads and interacts with the semantic HTML structure of your theme, and certain header layouts can cause it to surface hidden or unintended text content.

This is not caused by where the OTTO script is placed in your theme.liquid file. The root cause is almost always how your logo or site title is wrapped inside header.liquid.

🧩 Why header.liquid Is the Cause

Many Shopify themes wrap the store logo inside an tag on the homepage for SEO purposes. This is a common and valid pattern. However, some themes include visible text inside that tag alongside the logo image — such as the store name as a text fallback. When OTTO scans the page for heading structure, it reads that text as meaningful on-page content and may surface or interact with it in unexpected ways, causing it to appear visually on the page.

Common scenarios that trigger this issue:

• The logo is wrapped in an that also contains plain text (e.g., the store name as a fallback).
• The text inside the is hidden with CSS but not removed from the DOM, making it invisible to visitors but readable by scripts.
• A wrapping the logo contains text nodes that OTTO interprets as heading content.

📋 How to Diagnose the Problem

Before editing any files, confirm the issue is coming from the header area:

1. Look at your Shopify homepage with the OTTO script active. Note exactly where the extra text appears — is it near the logo, top navigation, or banner area?
2. Right-click the unexpected text in your browser and select Inspect to open browser developer tools.
3. Check whether the text is inside an tag or a wrapper element directly surrounding your logo.
4. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store → Themes → Edit Code and open the header.liquid file (or sections/header.liquid depending on your theme).
5. Search for <h1 inside the file and review what content is nested within it.

✅ How to Fix the Issue

Once you have identified the problematic element in header.liquid, apply one of the following fixes depending on your theme structure:

Option 1 — Remove visible text from inside the logo wrapper

1. In your header.liquid file, locate the tag wrapping your logo.
2. If there is plain text (such as your store name) sitting alongside the logo image tag, remove the text node or replace it with an empty string.
3. Save the file and reload your homepage to confirm the extra text is gone.

Option 2 — Use an aria-label instead of visible text

1. If the text inside the is serving an accessibility purpose (screen reader label), replace it with an aria-label attribute on the or the anchor tag inside it.
2. For example: with only the image tag inside — no visible text.
3. This keeps your store accessible without exposing text that OTTO can surface.

Option 3 — Visually hide the text correctly

1. If a previous developer hid the text using display: none or visibility: hidden, OTTO may still read it. Use a proper visually-hidden CSS class instead (sometimes called sr-only).
2. A visually-hidden element uses position: absolute; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0,0,0,0); — this keeps it available to screen readers but out of the normal document flow that OTTO processes.

⚙️ Verify OTTO Is Still Working After the Fix

1. In the Search Atlas platform, go to OTTO SEO using the left sidebar.
2. Open your connected Shopify site and run an OTTO scan to confirm all optimisations are still being applied correctly.
3. Check your homepage in the browser with the OTTO script active to confirm no unexpected text remains.
4. Review your H1 tag in OTTO's on-page recommendations to ensure the homepage heading structure is being read as intended.

🚫 What Not to Do

• Do not move the OTTO script from its current position in theme.liquid — script placement is not the cause of this issue and relocating it will not fix it.
• Do not delete the tag around your logo — this tag carries SEO value on the homepage and should be preserved.
• Do not hide text with display: none alone — some scripts, including OTTO, can still access and process text hidden this way.

💬 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.