Your OTTO SEO dashboard may show a change as Deployed while your live website still shows the old title, description, or other meta tags. Caching is one possible cause, but installation or delivery problems can also prevent updates from appearing. This guide explains how to check the live page and troubleshoot the mismatch.
🔎 What 'Deployed' Means
A Deployed status means the change is approved for deployment while OTTO is installed and the project is active. It does not by itself confirm that the updated tag is present on the live page or visible to every visitor or search engine. Caching or installation and delivery problems can prevent the update from appearing.
🧩 Common Causes
- Browser cache: your browser is showing a saved copy of the page.
- Website caching plugin: tools such as WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, or similar plugins store static copies of pages.
- Server or host cache: many hosts add their own page cache on top of your CMS.
- CDN cache: services such as Cloudflare, Fastly, or Akamai may serve an older copy from their network.
- Conflicting SEO plugin or theme: another plugin or theme setting may be writing its own title or description and overriding the new one.
- Wrong URL or version of the site: the change may have been checked on a different version of the page, such as www vs. non-www, http vs. https, or a staging copy.
- Search engine delay: the page is correct, but Google has not yet recrawled it, so search results still show the old text.
✅ Step 1: Check the Live Page Source
Do not rely on how the page looks in search results. Check the page code directly.
- Open the affected page in a private or incognito browser window.
- Right-click the page and choose View Page Source.
- Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) and search for <title or meta name=description.
- Compare the title and meta tag values on the live page with the values you deployed in Search Atlas. Use your browser’s developer tools to inspect the rendered page after OTTO has loaded; View Page Source alone may not show JavaScript-applied changes.
If the new values appear in the source, the deployment is live. Any remaining issue is with search engine results, which are covered in Step 5. If the old values appear, continue to Step 2.
🧹 Step 2: Clear Your Browser Cache
- Do a hard refresh: Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows or Cmd+Shift+R on Mac.
- If the old tags still appear, clear your browser cache fully, or test in a different browser or device.
⚙️ Step 3: Purge Your Website Caches
If the page source still shows old tags, purge each caching layer your site uses. Work from the inside out, and check the page after each step.
- CMS or caching plugin: open your caching plugin settings and choose the option to clear or purge all cache. If possible, purge just the affected URLs.
- Hosting cache: many hosts have a cache clearing option in their control panel. Clear it there as well.
- CDN cache: log in to your CDN and purge the affected URLs. Purging everything also works, but it may briefly slow your site while the cache rebuilds.
- Re-check the page source in a private window after each purge.
Tip: For agencies managing many client sites, repeat these steps on each client's site. Each one may use a different plugin, host, or CDN.
🔁 Step 4: Look for Conflicts and Overrides
If the old tags remain after purging, something may be overriding the new ones.
- Check whether another SEO plugin (for example Yoast, Rank Math, or All in One SEO) is active and set to output its own title and description.
- Check your theme or page builder for built-in SEO fields that may take priority.
- Search the page source for duplicate title or description tags. If you see more than one, a second source is adding tags.
- Confirm you are checking the correct domain version and not a staging or development copy.
- Confirm the page is not password protected, redirected, or blocked in a way that serves a different page to visitors.
If you find a conflict, disable the extra source of tags or adjust its settings, then purge your caches again.
🌐 Step 5: Allow Time for Search Engines
If the page source shows the correct tags but Google still shows the old text, the page just needs to be recrawled. Search engines also sometimes rewrite titles and descriptions in results based on the search query, even when your tags are correct.
- Use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console and request indexing for the updated page.
- Allow several days to a few weeks for search results to update.
- Avoid making repeated changes to the same page while you wait. This can slow down the process.
📋 Quick Checklist
- Open the page in a private window and view the source.
- Confirm you are testing the correct live URL.
- Purge your caching plugin, host cache, and CDN.
- Check for another SEO plugin or theme setting overriding your tags.
- Request a recrawl in Google Search Console.
💬 When to Contact Support
If the page source still shows old tags after you have purged all caches and ruled out conflicts, our team can investigate further. To speed things up, have these details ready:
- The project or website name in Search Atlas
- Two or three example URLs where the changes are not showing
- What the page source currently shows compared to what you deployed
- The caching plugin, host, and CDN your site uses
- The steps you have already tried
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be instantly connected with a member of our team.