What Is Sync to CMS?
Sync to CMS is an OTTO SEO feature that automatically pushes approved SEO changes directly to your connected WordPress site. Instead of manually copying recommendations into your CMS, OTTO can deploy them for you — saving time and reducing human error.
Important: Sync to CMS currently works exclusively with WordPress sites via the Search Atlas WordPress plugin. It is not available for other CMS platforms at this time.
What Gets Synced to Your CMS?
When Sync to CMS is enabled, OTTO can push SEO changes — such as meta titles, descriptions, and schema markup — directly to your WordPress site through your connected SEO plugin.
Current limitations to be aware of:
- Some recommendation types, such as heading structure changes and internal link suggestions, are surfaced by OTTO but may require manual implementation in your page editor rather than being automatically synced.
How Disabling Sync to CMS Affects OTTO
Disabling Sync to CMS does not stop OTTO from generating or displaying recommendations. OTTO continues to crawl your site, identify SEO opportunities, and surface actionable suggestions in the platform. The only difference is that approved changes will not be automatically pushed to your WordPress site.
This means:
- All recommendations remain visible inside OTTO SEO
- You retain full control over which changes go live and when
- Your live site remains unchanged until you manually apply updates in WordPress
Disabling sync is a safe and reversible action — you can re-enable it at any time from within the OTTO SEO settings area of the platform.
Best Practices for Managing SEO Changes
Whether you use Sync to CMS or prefer manual deployment, follow these best practices to keep your SEO strategy organised and risk-free:
- Review before approving. Always read OTTO's recommendations in full before approving them. Take time to understand the scope of each suggested change before it is pushed to your live site.
- Review changes at the page level. Where possible, check recommendations on a per-URL basis before approving changes at scale, so you can catch any issues early.
- Approve in batches, not all at once. Start with lower-risk changes like schema markup and meta descriptions. Review heading and internal link changes separately and apply them manually in your CMS editor.
- Check your SEO plugin settings. Confirm your WordPress SEO plugin is properly connected and that OTTO has the permissions it needs before enabling sync.
- Monitor your site after syncing. After approving and syncing a batch of changes, review your site to confirm everything looks and performs as expected.
If you are unsure whether a particular recommendation is safe to sync, disable Sync to CMS temporarily and apply the change manually first. 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.