OTTO's Dynamic SEO feature injects SEO signals — including canonical tags — directly into your page output via the Search Atlas WordPress plugin. If you need to stop this behaviour, you can disable Dynamic SEO from within the plugin settings. This article walks you through the exact steps using the verified plugin interface.
Make sure you have:
The Search Atlas WordPress plugin installed and activated on your site.
Administrator access to your WordPress dashboard.
Your Search Atlas account connected to the plugin (you can verify this under the plugin's connection settings).
When Dynamic SEO is enabled, OTTO pushes SEO changes — such as canonical tags, meta directives, and structured data — directly to your pages without modifying your WordPress database. Disabling this feature stops all active pixel injections immediately, including any canonical tag overrides applied by OTTO.
Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard and locate Search Atlas in the left-hand menu.
Open the Search Atlas plugin panel by clicking the Search Atlas menu item. This loads the plugin's main settings interface inside WordPress.
Go to the OTTO Settings tab within the plugin panel. This tab is labelled OTTO or OTTO SEO depending on your plugin version.
Locate the Dynamic SEO toggle. It is listed as Enable Dynamic SEO and is displayed as an on/off switch.
Click the toggle to turn it off. The switch will move to the off position and the label will reflect the disabled state.
Save your changes if prompted. Some plugin versions save automatically on toggle; others display a Save Settings button — click it to confirm.
Once disabled, OTTO will stop injecting canonical tags and other Dynamic SEO signals into your page output. Changes take effect immediately without requiring a cache clear or page reload.
After disabling the feature, verify the change was applied correctly:
Reload any page on your site and inspect the page source (Ctrl+U or Cmd+U). Canonical tags previously injected by OTTO should no longer appear in the <head> if they were not originally set by your theme or another plugin.
Return to the OTTO Settings tab in the plugin and confirm the Enable Dynamic SEO toggle is still in the off position.
If you use a caching plugin (such as WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, or WP Super Cache), clear your site cache after disabling Dynamic SEO to ensure visitors receive updated page output.
If you want to turn Dynamic SEO back on at any point, follow the same steps and toggle Enable Dynamic SEO back to the on position. OTTO will resume injecting SEO signals based on your active automation rules in Search Atlas.
OTTO's automation rules are managed from within your Search Atlas account, not the WordPress plugin. To review or adjust which SEO rules OTTO is applying to your site, navigate to your Search Atlas account and go to OTTO SEO in the left sidebar, then open SEO Automation inside it (URL: /seo-automation-v3). From there you can audit active OTTO tasks, including any canonical tag rules that were in effect before you disabled Dynamic SEO.
I don't see an OTTO tab in the plugin. Ensure you are running the latest version of the Search Atlas WordPress plugin. Update the plugin via WordPress Dashboard → Plugins → Updates and check again.
The toggle is greyed out. Your WordPress user account may not have sufficient permissions, or the plugin may have lost its connection to your Search Atlas account. Reconnect the plugin using your Search Atlas API key and try again.
Canonical tags are still appearing after disabling. Another plugin or your theme may be generating its own canonical tags independently of OTTO. Use a tool such as Google's URL Inspection or a browser source view to identify the origin of the tag.
I see an "Enable OTTO Server-Side Rendering" toggle but no Dynamic SEO toggle. These are different features. Server-Side Rendering controls how OTTO renders pages for crawlers and is separate from Dynamic SEO. Do not disable Server-Side Rendering to address canonical tag injection — use only the Enable Dynamic SEO toggle as described above.
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