🗂️ Overview
Brand Vault is Search Atlas's central source of truth for your brand information, tone, and guidelines. When you update or delete content inside Brand Vault, those changes do not take effect instantly across all AI-generated outputs. Understanding the refresh cycle helps you plan edits and set the right expectations for when new content will reflect your latest changes.
⏱️ How Often Does Brand Vault Refresh?
Brand Vault operates on a periodic refresh cycle, not a real-time sync. After you make changes — including editing sections, deleting information, or adding new brand guidelines — the platform's backend indexing and crawling processes need time to re-ingest and propagate the updated content.
- Typical refresh window: 3 to 4 days from the time changes are saved.
- There is no manual trigger to force an immediate refresh. The process runs automatically in the background on a scheduled basis.
- Until the refresh completes, AI-generated content such as queries run through Content Genius may still reference the previous version of your Brand Vault data, including sections you have already deleted.
🔍 Why Does Deleted Content Still Appear?
When you delete a section in Brand Vault, the change is saved to your account immediately. However, the AI tools that generate content rely on an indexed snapshot of your Brand Vault data rather than reading it live at the moment of each query. This snapshot is rebuilt during each periodic refresh cycle.
This means:
- Deleted or edited content remains in the active snapshot until the next refresh completes.
- Any content generated before the refresh will reflect the old snapshot, even if your edits were saved days prior.
- Once the 3–4 day refresh window passes and the new snapshot is indexed, all subsequent AI outputs will use your updated Brand Vault information.
📍 Where to Find and Edit Brand Vault
To review or update your Brand Vault content, navigate to: Header apps-grid icon → More Features → Brand Vault. All edits made here are queued for the next scheduled refresh cycle.
✅ Best Practices for Timing Your Updates
To get the most predictable results from Brand Vault updates, follow these recommendations:
- Make all edits in one session. Consolidate your Brand Vault changes rather than making incremental edits across multiple days. This reduces the risk of partial data being indexed mid-cycle.
- Plan for a 3–4 day lead time. If you are preparing for a new campaign or major content push, update Brand Vault at least four days before you intend to generate content.
- Avoid generating critical content immediately after edits. If you run a query in Content Genius right after updating Brand Vault, the output will still reflect the previous snapshot. Wait for the refresh window to pass first.
- Review generated content manually in the short term. During the refresh window, check AI-generated outputs against your latest Brand Vault changes and manually remove or adjust any outdated information that has carried over.
- Keep a record of your edit dates. Noting when you made key changes helps you calculate when the refresh is likely to complete and when it is safe to rely fully on new AI outputs.
🧩 How the Backend Indexing Process Works
When Brand Vault data is refreshed, the platform performs a background crawl and re-indexing of all stored brand content. This process ensures that guidelines, tone, deleted sections, and new additions are accurately captured in the snapshot used by AI tools like Content Genius. Because this crawl covers your entire Brand Vault — not just the sections you changed — it takes time to complete thoroughly and consistently across the platform.
This design prioritises accuracy and consistency in AI outputs over real-time propagation. A fully indexed snapshot produces more reliable, on-brand content than a live read that could capture a Brand Vault in a partially edited state.
💬 Need 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.