Site Audit & Content Score

📊 Understanding Your Site Health Score

🌍 On-Page Audit Ignores Selected Location

🔍 What You Are Seeing You run an on-page audit in Content Genius with a specific location selected, such as Easton, MD. The audit finishes normally, but when you open the completed report, the location shown is Worldwide instead of the one you picked. Rankings, search results, and competitor data in the report reflect global results rather than local ones. 💡 Why This Happens This is a known issue. When an on-page audit runs, Content Genius currently does not carry your configured target location into the audit job, so the audit falls back to the default: Worldwide. Our engineering team is aware of the behavior and is triaging it for a permanent fix. - The location selector appears to save correctly when you set up the audit. - The setting is simply not applied when the audit actually runs. - The audit itself is not broken. Content analysis, keyword coverage, and optimization suggestions are still generated; only geographic targeting is affected. 📊 How This Affects Your Report - Ranking positions and search engine results page (SERP) data reflect worldwide results, not your local market. - Competitor pages pulled into the report may differ from the local competitors you see when searching from your area. - Content scoring remains useful for your target keyword overall, but local search intent may carry less weight than expected. If you access Search Atlas through a white-label partner such as GoHighLevel, some location options in the on-page audit may appear restricted. That behavior is separate from and unrelated to this issue. 🛠️ Workarounds Until the Fix Ships 1. Add your location to the keyword. Instead of auditing a keyword like "plumber," use "plumber Easton MD." The audit reads geographic signals directly from the keyword, so results, competitors, and suggestions lean local even when the location field defaults to Worldwide. 2. Review local results manually. Run a search in your browser with your location applied, then compare the top results against the pages in your report. This helps you spot local competitors and landmarks worth mentioning in your content. 3. Re-run the audit after the fix. Once the issue is resolved, run a fresh on-page audit with your location selected so the report reflects true local data. 📋 How to Confirm Which Location Was Used 1. Open the completed on-page audit in Content Genius. 2. Check the report header or summary area, where the target location appears alongside your keyword and URL. 3. If it reads Worldwide, the audit ran with the default location, regardless of the location you selected during setup. 📣 Staying Updated and Getting Help You do not need to report the issue to be included in the fix. Watch for product update notes inside the platform announcing the resolution. 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.

🚀 Refresh Stale Core Web Vitals Data

🔍 Why your score may look outdated A site recrawl and a Core Web Vitals update are separate processes. A recrawl checks your pages again, while Core Web Vitals may use Google Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) field data. CrUX data reflects real-user experiences and may not change immediately after your site updates. Your dashboard can therefore show the same score even when the latest crawl completed successfully. A page may also have no available CrUX field data, especially for low-traffic pages or newly published URLs. 🔄 Refresh your Search Atlas data 1. Open Home from the left sidebar. 2. Select Refresh data. 3. Return to the relevant project and review the Core Web Vitals panel. 4. Check the panel’s Last checked date to confirm when the data was evaluated. If the score still has not changed, allow time for new field data to become available. Refreshing the dashboard cannot create new Google CrUX data. 📊 Check the latest site metrics 1. Open Site Metrics from the left sidebar. 2. Use Analyze to review the project and its current metrics. 3. Open History to compare previous results and identify whether the score changed. 4. Use Filters or Columns to focus on the affected URLs and metrics. 🛠️ What to verify on your website - Confirm the updated pages are publicly accessible and not blocked by robots.txt, authentication, or a firewall. - Check that the pages return a successful status and load correctly for mobile users. - Review changes affecting loading speed, responsiveness, images, JavaScript, caching, and third-party scripts. - Remember that Core Web Vitals are evaluated separately for mobile and desktop experiences. ⚠️ When no score is available If Google has no CrUX field data for a page or origin, Search Atlas may show an empty state instead of a score. This does not necessarily indicate a technical failure. Continue improving the page and check again after more eligible user data is collected. 💬 Get help with stale data If the Last checked date does not update after using Refresh data, or the site is crawlable but metrics remain unexpectedly stale, record the affected project, URL, and approximate recrawl time. 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.

🌦️ Understanding Climate Audit Results

🌍 What is the Climate Audit? The Climate Audit reviews climate-related statements across your pages and compares them with the measured climate characteristics of each location. It helps identify factual errors and opportunities to make local content more useful. The audit focuses on accuracy and relevance. A page does not need to mention climate to perform well, but adding useful local context may improve its helpfulness. 📊 What each label means - FIX: The page contains a climate statement that conflicts with measured local conditions. These are factual errors that should be corrected. - ADD: The page does not mention the local climate. This is an opportunity to add relevant information, not an error. - ENHANCE: The climate wording is accurate but too general. It could apply to many locations, so consider adding specific local details. - BETWEEN: The location falls between two climate types. Both descriptions may be defensible. Update the content to address practical conditions that apply across both types. - NONE: The page is already accurate and does not require a climate-related change. 🛠️ How to handle each result 1. Review the page URL and the audit explanation. 2. For FIX results, remove or rewrite the conflicting claim. For example, do not describe lake-effect moisture in a location that is far from the Great Lakes unless reliable local research supports the statement. 3. For ADD results, add climate information only when it helps explain the customer’s needs, services, or local conditions. 4. For ENHANCE results, replace broad wording with accurate details such as seasonal weather, precipitation, temperature changes, humidity, or conditions that affect the relevant service. 5. For BETWEEN results, avoid choosing one climate type without context. Write about the shared conditions and practical issues that apply to the location. 6. For NONE results, leave the content unchanged unless you have a separate editorial reason to update it. ✍️ Writing accurate climate content - Use location-specific facts rather than generic statements that could describe any market. - Connect climate details to the page topic and customer needs. - Avoid overstating conditions or presenting borderline classifications as certain. - Do not add climate claims just to include keywords. - Verify unusual claims with a reliable local or geographic source before publishing. - Keep the wording natural and useful for readers. ✅ Understanding audit totals A large number of ADD or ENHANCE results does not mean the site contains widespread errors. These labels identify content opportunities. The FIX label represents the pages where the audit found a contradiction that should receive priority. BETWEEN results require judgment because climate boundaries are not always clear-cut. Review the audit’s recommended wording and focus on conditions that are relevant under either classification. 🚀 Recommended workflow 1. Prioritize all FIX pages. 2. Review BETWEEN pages carefully and use balanced wording. 3. Improve ENHANCE pages where local detail adds value. 4. Address ADD pages selectively based on the page purpose. 5. Do not spend time changing NONE pages for climate reasons alone. 6. Recheck edited pages for accuracy, readability, and consistency with the rest of the site. 💬 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.

🔍 Resolve Climate Audit Content Flags

🌡️ What These Audit Flags Mean Climate-audit and active sitemap reviews can identify pages with repeated FAQ content or missing content sections. These flags describe structural patterns, not automatic proof that every page needs the same fix. A page may be flagged because its template is incomplete, content did not load during the scan, or similar sections were published more than once. 📊 Validate the Scope First Before editing pages, confirm the findings against the live site and the current sitemap: 1. Open OTTO SEO → All Audits or OTTO SEO → Crawl Monitoring to review the audit results. 2. Compare the staging findings with live production pages. 3. Confirm whether the reported count matches pages currently listed in the active XML sitemap. 4. Separate results into high-confidence duplicate FAQ pages, medium-confidence structure issues, and clean pages. 5. Manually review a representative sample so decisions are not based only on automated detection. Counts can differ between audit screens when scans, sitemap data, or domain analysis are still updating. Refresh the audit after the crawl and sitemap data are available. Previously reported sitemap scheme and duplicate-row issues may also affect older results. 🧩 Define the Correct Page Structure Choose five to ten representative pages across templates, locations, and issue types. Compare them with approved reference pages, such as Glendale AZ, Tucson AZ, or Boston. Document the intended structure before making bulk changes. For each template, decide how to handle: - Duplicate FAQ content: retain one accurate FAQ section and remove or rewrite repeated copies. - Intro copy: keep a clear, unique introduction that matches the page location and intent. - “Common Plumbing Challenges”: retain it only when it adds useful, page-specific information. - Missing content3Summary, wcrrContent, or content7Summary: determine whether the field is required for that template or should remain intentionally empty. - Pages needing substantial changes: mark them for rewrite or rebuild instead of applying a mechanical fix. 🧪 Run a Staging Pilot Repair a small batch of approximately 10–25 pages in staging. Include different templates and severity levels. After the changes: 1. Refresh the site or audit cache. 2. Review the rendered pages, not only the stored content fields. 3. Check headings, intro copy, FAQ placement, section order, links, and page-specific details. 4. Compare before-and-after results and record any pages that still need manual rewriting. 5. Keep an export or rollback copy of every changed row. 🚀 Roll Out Repairs in Waves After the pilot passes QA, remediate pages in controlled waves. Prioritize active sitemap pages, then address high-severity findings before medium-severity structure issues. Run every wave through staging and QA before promoting it to production. Continue monitoring the sitemap and rerun the audit after each release. 📌 Set Practical Expectations A small climate-audit set, such as 70 pages, may be fixable within a week when the scope is limited and the repair recipe is clear. A set of 2,475 high-severity active sitemap pages is not suitable for manual cleanup in one week. A broader set of 3,760 pages with any structural flag requires automated or semi-automated remediation, staged testing, and multiple review waves. 🛠️ Where to Review and Create Content Use OTTO SEO → All Audits for audit findings and Content → Content Genius for page rewrites or new content. Content Genius includes options to write, generate, rework, or create content in bulk. Use bulk actions only after the target structure has been approved and the pilot confirms that the output is accurate. 💬 Get 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.

📊 Diagnosing Stalled Holistic SEO Pillar Scores

🔍 Why Your Pillar Scores May Not Be Moving Deploying OTTO recommendations is the right first step, but pillar scores won't improve unless the right types of issues are resolved on the right pages. Each of the four Holistic SEO Pillars — Content, Authority, Technical, and UX Signals — is fed by a distinct set of OTTO issue categories. Fixing issues that do not map to the lagging pillar, or fixing low-impact pages, will have little visible effect on your scores. 🗂️ Understanding Pillar Scores and OTTO Issue Categories Each of the four Holistic SEO Pillars is influenced by different types of issues surfaced in OTTO. In general terms: - Content Score — is affected by on-page content issues such as missing or duplicate metadata, heading structure problems, thin content, and internal linking gaps. - Authority Score — is affected by issues related to your site's backlink profile and external link quality. - Technical Score — is affected by crawlability and indexation issues, broken links, redirect chains, sitemap errors, canonical conflicts, and structured data problems. - UX Signals Score — is affected by page experience issues such as Core Web Vitals failures, mobile usability errors, and image optimization problems that impact load performance. Because the exact issue subcategories and their pillar assignments can vary based on your site's configuration and the version of OTTO you are using, the most reliable way to identify which open issues are suppressing a specific pillar score is to contact our support team directly. A teammate can review your account, confirm which issue types map to the stalled pillar, and advise on prioritization. 📋 What to Have Ready When You Escalate To help our team diagnose your stalled pillar score as quickly as possible, please have the following information ready: - The name of the project affected and the domain it is connected to. - Which specific pillar score is stalled (Content, Authority, Technical, or UX Signals) and approximately how long it has been unchanged. - Whether you have recently deployed OTTO recommendations and, if so, which issue categories those recommendations belonged to. - Any error messages or warnings visible in your OTTO dashboard related to the affected pillar. - The timestamp of your most recent deployment, so the team can check whether a score recalculation has been triggered. Providing this detail upfront will allow the team to identify the root cause without needing to ask follow-up questions, and get you to a resolution faster. 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.

📈 How to Install and Use the Search Engine Audit Widget

Every website visitor is a potential opportunity, but without the right system in place, most of them leave unnoticed. The Search Engine Audit Widget transforms passive traffic into qualified SEO leads by offering instant value in exchange for contact information. In just a few steps, you can activate a fully branded audit experience that captures, stores, and routes leads directly into your workflow. 🎯 What Is the Search Engine Audit Widget? The widget allows visitors to enter their website URL, receive an instant SEO audit, and submit their contact details. When they do, their information is captured inside your dashboard. 🛠 Step 1 — Where to Find the Widget Accessing Agency Hub from the dashboard header When you log into Search Atlas, you land on the Home dashboard: a dark background, a left vertical sidebar navigation, your profile in the top right (CSM Team dropdown), and a grid icon (feature launcher) near the top right. In the top right corner, click the grid icon (9-dot icon), in the same icon group as the Atlas Agent button and the credits display. A slide-out panel titled More Features appears from the right side with multiple feature tiles. More Features panel with Agency Whitelabel option In the More Features panel, locate Agency Hub (purple flag icon) and click it. This opens the White Label Setup page. Inside White Label Setup, a blue notification banner reads: Activate Your Whitelabel Agency to Access Advanced Settings. Below that is a horizontal tab navigation: White Label Setup, Settings, Site Analysis Lead Capture Widget, Affiliate Link, and Join SEOTheory Community (Logo). Site Analysis Lead Capture Widget tab Click the third tab, Site Analysis Lead Capture Widget. It becomes highlighted with a blue underline, opening the widget configuration page. 🧭 What You See on the Widget Configuration Page The page is organized into sections: - Configure and Test the Widget — placeholder and button text fields, background and font color selectors, a live preview box, and an Analyze My Site test button, so you can customize how the widget looks before installing it. - Install the Widget — copy the snippet and paste it as HTML using the Copy Snippet to Clipboard button. This is the actual installation code. - Add Custom HTML (Optional) — a toggle to add HTML to the top or bottom of the report, used for injecting custom branding or messaging into generated reports. - Integrations (Optional) — a table listing Application, Webhook, and Actions, with an Add Webhook button for pushing captured leads to external systems. - Leads Captured — a table at the bottom of the page showing Domain, Email, Phone Number, Company, and Time Stamp for every lead captured in real time. Full path: Header 'More Features' (grid icon) → Agency Hub → White Label Setup → Site Analysis Lead Capture Widget tab (Logo page, /agency-settings). 💻 Step 2 — How to Install the Widget on Your Website Inside the widget settings, you'll find the embed code. To install it, copy the widget script and paste it into your website's HTML, either before the closing body tag or inside your site builder's custom code section. Once installed, the widget will appear on your site and start collecting leads automatically. 📥 Step 3 — Where Leads Go When someone completes the audit, their domain, email, phone number, company name, and timestamp are automatically stored in Agency Settings → Site Analysis Lead Capture Widget → Leads Captured. No manual configuration is required. 🔗 Optional: Connect a Webhook If you want leads sent to your CRM, scroll to Integrations, click + Add Webhook, and connect your automation platform. Leads can then trigger email sequences, CRM pipelines, Slack alerts, and sales notifications. 🚀 Best Practice After a lead submits, run a branded report, send the audit immediately, and follow up within 5–15 minutes. Speed dramatically increases close rate. Once installed, the Search Engine Audit Widget works quietly in the background, analyzing domains, capturing contact details, and feeding your pipeline in real time. Combined with automated reporting and webhook integrations, it becomes a scalable lead generation engine. 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.

📋 Track and Review AI-Generated Changes in Search Atlas

🧭 Overview Search Atlas supports bulk AI content generation, bulk editing of AI-generated title tags across multiple pages, and reviewing a log of changes made by AI within your account. This article explains what these capabilities cover and how to get help locating them in the platform. ✅ Bulk AI Content Generation Search Atlas allows you to generate AI content for multiple pages at once rather than working through them individually. This is useful when you need to produce or refresh content at scale. The exact steps and button labels for triggering bulk generation depend on your account configuration and the current version of the platform. To use this feature: 1. Log in to your Search Atlas account and navigate to the content management area of the platform. 2. Look for a bulk generation or multi-select option within the content or task list view. 3. Select the pages or tasks you want to include, then initiate the AI generation process. 4. Wait for each task to complete — generated content will appear once the process finishes. If you are unable to locate the bulk generation option in your current view, it may be available under a different section depending on your plan or workspace setup. ✏️ Bulk Editing AI-Generated Title Tags Once AI content has been generated, Search Atlas provides a way to edit title tags across multiple pages at the same time. To use this: 1. Navigate to the content or task list where your AI-generated pages are listed. 2. Select multiple pages using the checkboxes or multi-select controls available in that view. 3. Look for a bulk edit or batch action option that appears when multiple items are selected. 4. Apply your updated title tag value or transformation, then confirm the changes. Tip: Review AI-generated title tags before bulk editing to ensure the updates align with your target keywords and brand guidelines. 🕓 Accessing a Log of AI-Driven Changes Search Atlas includes change-tracking functionality so you can review what was updated by AI, when it happened, and what type of change was made. This audit history is accessible from within your account settings or a dedicated log area in the platform. To find the change log: 1. Log in to Search Atlas and open your account or settings menu. 2. Look for an activity log, audit log, or change history section within account settings. 3. Once located, you should be able to view a timestamped record of AI-driven and manual changes made in your account. 4. Sorting or filtering options may be available to help you narrow down entries by date or change type. If you cannot locate the change log or are unsure which section of the platform contains it, our support team can point you to the correct location for your account. 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.

📘 How to Run a Site Audit in Search Atlas

The Site Audit tool in Search Atlas allows you to scan your website and identify SEO issues that may impact performance. From the All Audits view, you can run new audits, review previous scans, and explore detailed reports across your site. 🧱 Navigation Path Search Atlas → OTTO SEO → Site Audit → All Audits ⚙️ Run a New Site Audit Step 1 Open OTTO SEO from the left sidebar. Step 2 Click Site Audit. Step 3 Select All Audits. Step 4 In the Site Auditor screen, enter your website URL in the Enter a site URL… field. Step 5 Click Audit Site. 📊 Access Audit Result Once the audit starts, your site will appear in the Recently Added list on the All Audits (Site Audit) page. You can open the audit to explore the following sections: - Overview – High-level SEO health summary - Page Explorer – Page-level audit results - Content Velocity – Content growth and change tracking - Domain-level – Domain-wide performance insights - Issues – Detailed list of detected SEO issues ⏱ Audit Processing Time 1. Audit duration depends on site size and crawl depth 2. Larger sites may take longer to complete 3. Results populate automatically once the audit finishes ❓ FAQs ❓ Where do I find Site Audit in Search Atlas? Site Audit is located under OTTO SEO → Site Audit → All Audits. ❓ Can I run audits for multiple sites? Yes. You can audit multiple sites, and each scan will appear in the All Audits list. ❓ Why don’t I see results immediately? Site audits run asynchronously. Results will appear once the crawl and analysis are complete. Running regular site audits helps you identify SEO issues early and track improvements over time. Use the Site Audit tool to prioritize fixes and maintain a healthy website.

🔗 Review OTTO Link Fixes in Site Audit

🔍 What Does 'Issues with Links' Mean in Site Audit? The Issues with Links category in Site Audit flags problems that affect how search engines and visitors navigate your site. OTTO groups these into several issue types, including: - Broken internal links — links pointing to pages that return a 404 or other error - Broken external links — outbound links leading to unavailable destinations - Redirect chains — links passing through multiple redirects before reaching a final URL - Links to redirected pages — internal links targeting a URL that itself redirects elsewhere - Nofollow links to important pages — links blocking PageRank flow to pages that should be crawlable - Missing anchor text — links without descriptive text that help search engines understand context Each issue type is assigned a severity level — Critical, Warning, or Opportunity — so you can prioritise fixes by impact. ⚙️ What Changes Will OTTO Make Automatically? When you deploy OTTO fixes for link issues, OTTO can automatically action the following on supported site types: - Update internal links pointing to redirected URLs so they link directly to the final destination - Remove or replace broken internal links with corrected URLs where a clear replacement exists - Add or improve anchor text on links flagged as missing descriptive text - Adjust nofollow attributes on internal links to allow proper crawling of important pages OTTO will not automatically modify external links pointing to third-party domains, as those changes require direct access to external resources outside your site. Those issues are flagged for your manual review. Before any fix goes live, OTTO presents each proposed change for your approval — nothing is applied to your site without your explicit action during the deployment step. 📋 How to Review Proposed Fixes Before Deployment Follow these steps to inspect what OTTO plans to change before you approve deployment: 1. In the left sidebar, click OTTO SEO, then open SEO Automation inside it to open the OTTO dashboard. 2. Select the relevant site and navigate to the Site Audit section within the OTTO workspace. 3. Click the Issues with Links category to expand the list of detected issues. 4. Click any individual issue type to see a full list of affected URLs and the specific fix OTTO has generated for each one. 5. Review the Current Value and Proposed Fix columns side by side for each item. 6. Use the checkboxes to select the fixes you want to approve, or deselect any you prefer to handle manually. 7. When satisfied, navigate to Local → My Tasks (My Tasks) and click the Deploy all changes button to push your approved changes live. You are always in control — unapproved fixes remain staged and will not affect your site until you explicitly deploy them. 🕓 How to Review Changes After Deployment Once fixes have been deployed, you can audit exactly what OTTO changed and when directly inside the OTTO dashboard: 1. In the left sidebar, click OTTO SEO, then open SEO Automation inside it. 2. Open your site's OTTO workspace and navigate to the Site Audit section. 3. Click the Activity Log tab at the top of the page. This is the correct location to view a timestamped record of all changes OTTO has applied. 4. Use the Category filter and select Links to narrow the log to link-related fixes only. 5. Each entry shows the affected URL, the type of fix applied, the before and after values, and the date and time of deployment. 6. If you need to revert a specific change, select the entry and click Undo Fix to restore the original state. Note: If you previously followed guidance referring to a Fix History page and could not locate it, that section no longer exists in the current platform. The Activity Log tab inside the OTTO Site Audit workspace is the correct and up-to-date location for all deployment history. ✅ Best Practices for Managing Link Fixes - Run a fresh Site Audit crawl after deployment to confirm issues are resolved and no new ones have been introduced. - Review broken external links manually — OTTO flags them but cannot auto-fix links pointing to third-party domains. - Check the Activity Log after each deployment session to maintain a clear record of what has changed on your site. - Use the Undo Fix option promptly if a deployed change produces unexpected results on your site. 💬 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.

🔍 Filter Site Audit Results to Non-Compliant Pages

🗺️ Overview By default, Site Audit displays all crawled pages — both compliant and non-compliant. This article explains how to filter the results so you see only the pages that need attention, and clarifies why you may notice duplicate URLs with suffixes such as /2, /3, or /4 appearing for a single page. ⚙️ How to Filter for Non-Compliant Pages Only Follow these steps to narrow Site Audit results down to pages that have at least one issue: 1. In the left sidebar, navigate to OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation) (URL: /seo-automation-v3). 2. Open your project and go to the Site Audit section. 3. Locate the Compliance or Status filter at the top of the results table. 4. Select Non-Compliant (or Issues Found, depending on your view) from the filter dropdown. 5. Click Apply. The table will refresh and display only pages that have one or more unresolved issues. You can combine this filter with other filters — such as issue type, priority level, or page category — to further narrow your focus and prioritise fixes efficiently. 📊 Understanding the Compliance Status Labels Site Audit assigns one of the following statuses to each crawled page: - Compliant — The page meets all checked SEO criteria. No action is required. - Non-Compliant — The page has one or more SEO issues that need to be resolved. - Not Applicable — The audit rule does not apply to this page type (e.g., a rule about product schema on a blog post). Filtering by Non-Compliant removes compliant and not-applicable pages from view, so your team can focus exclusively on pages that require work. 🔗 Why Duplicate URLs with /2, /3, /4 Appear If you see the same page URL listed multiple times with numeric suffixes — for example /about, /about/2, /about/3 — this is almost always caused by one of the following: - Pagination: Your CMS or theme generates paginated versions of a page (common with comment sections, long archive pages, or product listings). Each paginated variant is treated as a separate URL by the crawler. - Duplicate crawl paths: Internal links on your site point to the same content using different URL structures, causing the crawler to log each variant individually. - Plugin or theme behaviour: Certain WordPress plugins or themes append page numbers to URLs even when there is no additional content to paginate. These duplicate URLs are not a bug in Site Audit — the crawler is accurately reporting what it finds. However, they can inflate your page count and make it harder to spot genuine issues. Here is how to address them: 1. Add canonical tags to paginated URLs pointing back to the primary (page 1) URL, signalling to search engines which version is authoritative. 2. Implement rel="next" / rel="prev" markup if the pagination contains genuinely distinct content. 3. Disable unnecessary pagination in your CMS settings or plugin configuration if the extra pages serve no content purpose. 4. Use the URL filter in Site Audit to exclude suffix patterns (e.g., filter out URLs containing /2, /3) while you investigate, keeping your working view clean. 💡 Tips for Working Through Audit Results Efficiently - Sort by Issue Count (descending) after applying the Non-Compliant filter to tackle the most problematic pages first. - Use the Issue Type filter alongside the compliance filter to address one category of problem at a time (e.g., all missing meta descriptions). - Re-run the audit after making fixes to confirm pages move to Compliant status. - Export the filtered results using the Export to Docs button (via OTTO SEO → Site Audit → Overview (Website Overview)) to share a prioritised fix list with your development or content team. 🛠️ Still 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. Additional Notes Important: The Create Segment and Manage Columns options are not designed to filter by compliance status. Using them for this purpose will not produce the results you need. Stick to the Filter bar and issue category panels for accurate filtering.

📘 Understanding Site Audits

A Site Audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website's technical SEO health and performance. Using automated crawlers, it examines your website’s pages to identify issues that could affect rankings, user experience, and overall performance. OTTO’s Site Audit tool is designed to spot areas of improvement for any live website. While no backend access is required to run an audit, connecting OTTO’s pixel is essential for deploying fixes based on audit results. 🐾 Step-by-Step Instructions 🔍 Setting Up Your Site Audit Navigation Path: OTTO SEO → Site Audit → All Audits Here's a Loom with the exact steps! 1. Enter Your Website URL - Input the complete URL (e.g., https://www.example.com). - Verify that the URL includes the correct protocol (http:// or https://). 2. Configure Crawl Depth - Set the total number of pages you want analyzed. - Recommended: Total pages + 10% buffer. - Example: For 1,000 pages, set the limit to 1,100. 3. Set Crawl Frequency - Minimum: Monthly - For critical pages: Weekly - Consider factors like content update frequency, site size, and server capacity. 4. Choose User Agent - Simulate search engine behavior. Recommended: - Search Atlas User Agent - Googlebot Mobile 5. Adjust Crawl Speed - Faster = quick overview - Slower = more detailed insights - ⚠️ Important: A slower crawl usually yields more accurate results. 6. Crawl Settings - Robots.txt Behavior: - Follow Robots.txt (Recommended): Matches Google’s crawl behavior. - Ignore Robots.txt: Crawls all accessible pages for full debugging. - JavaScript Rendering: - Available only on Pro & Enterprise plans. - Detects dynamic content and verifies OTTO fix implementations. 7. URL Exclusion Conditions (Beta) - Exclude irrelevant pages to optimize crawl budget. - Options: - Exclusion Rules: Block URLs containing specific terms (e.g., /blog). - Inclusion Exceptions: Add exceptions back (e.g., /blog/*). Handle 404 pages by excluding them and re-running the audit. ⚙️ How to Exclude Pages from Crawling or Optimization in OTTO 1️⃣ Navigate to the OTTO SEO Area 1. In the left-hand navigation, click on OTTO SEO. 2. Go to Site Audit and Select All Audits. - This takes you to the Site Auditor dashboard, where all audited sites are listed. 2️⃣ Open Site-Level Settings 1. Locate the site you want to configure in the Audited Sites list. 2. Click the three-dot (⋮) menu on the site card. 3. From the dropdown, select Crawl Settings. 💡 This menu is also where you can access GSC/GA Settings, trigger a Recrawl, or remove a site entirely. 3️⃣ Configure Crawl Settings Inside the Crawl Settings modal: 1. Basic Controls - Max Pages to Crawl Define the maximum number of URLs OTTO is allowed to crawl. - Crawl Frequency Choose how often OTTO should recrawl the site (e.g., Weekly). Click Show more to access advanced options. 4️⃣ Set Advanced Crawl Rules (Critical Step) In the expanded settings: - User Agent Select the crawler identity (default: Google Chrome Desktop). - Respect robots.txt Toggle on/off depending on your crawl policy. - JS Rendering Enable if your site relies heavily on JavaScript. - Crawl Speed Control pages per second to avoid server strain. 5️⃣ Exclude Specific URLs or URL Patterns Under URL Exclusion Conditions (Beta): 1. Click + Add condition. 2. Choose the rule type (e.g.): - Exclude → all URLs that contain 3. Enter the URL fragment or pattern you want excluded Example: thebrothersbloom.com/florida 4. Add additional rules if needed (multiple exclusions are supported). 🚫 Any URL matching these conditions will be excluded from crawling and downstream OTTO optimizations. 6️⃣ Save and Apply 1. Click Update to apply changes. 2. OTTO will respect these exclusions on the next crawl cycle (or immediately if a recrawl is triggered). ✅ What This Means Operationally - Excluded URLs will not be analyzed - No on-page fixes will be generated or deployed - These pages are effectively removed from OTTO’s execution scope This ensures precise control over which parts of your site OTTO can act on, reinforcing the platform’s principle of intentional, permission-based automation. ✅ Use cases for exclusions: - Sensitive content (private or restricted pages). - Pages under development. - Duplicate content that harms SEO. ⏱️ Post-Setup Audit Automation - Once the OTTO pixel is connected: 1. Go to Audit Scheduling in your OTTO dashboard. 2. Define frequency (daily, weekly, monthly). 3. Save your schedule. - OTTO will automatically monitor your site, ensuring consistent tracking of your SEO health. ❓ FAQs Why do crawled pages not match total site pages? 💡 By default, audits crawl a limited number of pages. Adjust the page limit in settings to capture the full site. Should I run the Site Audit before connecting the OTTO pixel? ⚡ Yes. Running the audit first ensures all site elements are detected correctly before integration. Can I audit only certain sections of my site? ✅ Yes. Use URL inclusion/exclusion rules to focus crawls on specific sections. 👉 Always run your Site Audit before creating OTTO projects. This ensures the crawler captures all pages correctly, avoids incomplete crawls, and sets up a smooth integration with the OTTO pixel later.

🔍 Filter Site Audit Results to Non-Compliant Pages Only

🧭 Overview Site Audit surfaces every page the crawler evaluates — including pages that are fully compliant. By default, the results table shows all crawled URLs, so you may see a mix of passing and failing pages. This article explains how to filter the view to show only non-compliant pages and clarifies a common question about URLs that appear with /2, /3, or /4 suffixes. 🚦 Why Compliant Pages Appear in Your Results Site Audit is designed to give you a complete picture of your site's health. Every crawled URL — whether it passes or fails a check — is included in the results table. This means compliant pages will appear alongside non-compliant ones unless you actively apply filters to narrow the view. This is expected behavior, not a bug. ✅ How to Show Only Non-Compliant Pages Use the built-in issue filters in Site Audit to isolate pages that have at least one detected problem. Follow these steps: 1. Open Site Audit from the left sidebar under OTTO SEO (OTTO SEO → Site Audit). 2. Select the audit project you want to review. 3. In the results table, locate the Filter bar at the top of the page list. 4. Click the filter dropdown and select the specific issue type you want to focus on — for example, Missing Meta Description, Broken Links, or Missing H1. 5. The table will refresh to show only URLs that have that issue flagged. Pages with no issues for that check will be excluded from the view. 6. To see all non-compliant pages across multiple issue types, apply additional filters one at a time or use the issue category panels to drill into each check separately. Important: The Create Segment and Manage Columns options are not designed to filter by compliance status. Using them for this purpose will not produce the results you need. Stick to the Filter bar and issue category panels for accurate filtering. 📋 Reviewing Issues by Category A faster way to focus on non-compliant pages is to navigate by issue category rather than the full URL list: 1. From your audit project, scroll to the Issues section or click any issue category tile on the audit summary screen. 2. Each category — such as Indexability, On-Page SEO, or Performance — shows only the pages affected by that issue group. 3. Click into a specific issue to see the exact list of non-compliant URLs for that check. This approach is the most reliable way to work through non-compliant pages systematically without manually filtering the full results table. 🔢 Understanding /2, /3, /4 URL Suffixes in Site Audit You may notice that a single page on your site appears in Site Audit results with multiple URL variants, such as: - example.com/my-page - example.com/my-page/2 - example.com/my-page/3 These suffixes are not pagination issues, duplicate content errors, or problems introduced by a platform change. They reflect a known behavior of the Site Audit crawler. Here is what causes them: - When a page contains paginated content blocks — such as comment sections, product listings, or posts that load across multiple internal pages — the crawler follows each paginated segment as a separate URL. - The /2, /3, and /4 suffixes represent those paginated segments as the crawler discovers and indexes them. - This is consistent with how search engines also crawl paginated content, so the behavior reflects real URL structures on your site rather than a platform error. If you see these suffixes for a page that you do not believe has paginated content, check whether your CMS or theme is generating pagination parameters automatically — for example, through comment pagination settings in WordPress. ⚠️ What These Suffixes Are Not - They are not caused by a Search Atlas platform update or bug. - They are not duplicate URL errors that require canonical tags to fix (though adding canonicals to paginated segments is still a best practice if the content is thin). - They are not a sign that the crawler is misidentifying your pages. 🛠️ Recommended Next Steps - Use the issue category panels in Site Audit to work through non-compliant pages efficiently. - Apply the Filter bar to isolate specific issue types when you need a focused URL list. - If /2, /3, /4 URLs are appearing unexpectedly, review your CMS pagination settings and consider adding rel=canonical tags pointing to the root URL of the page. - Re-run the audit after making changes to confirm that flagged issues are resolved. 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.

🩺 Understanding Healthy Pages in Site Health Audit

📋 What Is the Healthy Pages Count? The healthy pages metric in the Site Health Audit shows the number of pages on your site that have no detected SEO issues. A page is counted as healthy only when it passes all checks performed during the audit — including crawlability, indexability, metadata, response codes, and more. If you are seeing a number that feels lower than expected, this is almost always because some pages have at least one issue flagged against them, which moves them out of the healthy count — even if the issue is minor. 🔍 Why Is Your Healthy Page Count Low? Several common reasons cause the healthy pages number to be lower than the total number of pages crawled: - Pages with warnings: Pages flagged with warnings — such as missing meta descriptions, slow load times, or thin content — are not counted as fully healthy. - Pages with errors: Any page returning a 4xx or 5xx status code, or blocked by robots.txt, is excluded from the healthy count. - Redirect chains: Pages involved in redirect chains or loops are flagged and removed from the healthy count. - Noindex tags: Pages carrying a noindex directive may be excluded from the healthy count depending on your audit configuration. - Incomplete crawl: If the audit crawled only a portion of your site — due to crawl limits, login-gated pages, or crawl depth settings — the total pages discovered may be lower than expected, which directly affects how many can be counted as healthy. - Recently added pages: Pages added after the last audit run will not appear until you refresh the audit. 🗺️ How to Identify Which Pages Are Not Healthy 1. Navigate to the Site Health Audit from the left sidebar. 2. Open your site's audit report and locate the Issues or Pages tab. 3. Filter the page list by status — look for pages marked as Errors, Warnings, or Notices. 4. Click into any flagged page to see the specific issues preventing it from being counted as healthy. 5. Prioritise fixing errors first, as these have the greatest impact on your healthy page count and overall SEO performance. 🔄 How to Refresh or Re-run Your Audit Your healthy page count reflects the state of your site at the time of the last audit crawl. If you have recently fixed issues or published new pages, re-run the audit to get an updated count: 1. Go to OTTO SEO → Site Audit → Overview (Website Overview). 2. Select your site from the list. 3. Click Recrawl Site to trigger a new audit. 4. Wait for the crawl to complete — crawl time varies based on site size. 5. Review the updated healthy pages figure once the audit finishes. 📊 How to Improve Your Healthy Pages Count Increasing your healthy pages count means resolving the issues flagged on affected pages. Here is a recommended order of priority: - Fix errors first: Broken links, server errors, and blocked pages have the highest impact. Resolve these before moving to warnings. - Address missing metadata: Add or complete meta titles and meta descriptions on all pages that are missing them. - Resolve duplicate content: Use canonical tags to consolidate duplicate or near-duplicate pages. - Improve page speed: Pages flagged for slow load times can be optimised through image compression, caching, and script management. - Clear redirect issues: Audit and simplify any redirect chains so pages resolve cleanly in a single hop. After resolving a batch of issues, re-run the audit to confirm the pages have moved into the healthy count. ❓ Frequently Asked Questions Does a low healthy page count mean my site is performing badly? Not necessarily. A low count highlights opportunities for improvement. Even sites with strong organic traffic often have a proportion of pages with minor issues. Focus on fixing errors before warnings. Can the healthy page count ever exceed the total crawled pages? No. The healthy count is always a subset of the total crawled pages. If the numbers look inconsistent, try re-running the audit to ensure the data is current. Why does the crawled page total seem lower than my actual site? Crawl limits, nofollow links, login-required pages, and crawl depth settings can all restrict which pages are discovered. Review your audit settings to ensure the crawler has access to all relevant sections of your site. 💬 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.

🗂️ How to Bulk Select All SEO Tasks at Once

This article explains how to select multiple SEO tasks in bulk so you can take action on them all at once — without clicking each task one by one. Up to 100 tasks can be selected at a time using the built-in bulk selection option. 🛠️ Step-by-Step 1. Navigate to the SEO task list within your project (for example, your OTTO SEO task queue). 2. Look for the checkbox at the top of the task list — this is the bulk select or "select all" checkbox located in the column header row, above the individual task checkboxes. 3. Click that header checkbox once to select all tasks currently visible on the page (up to 100 tasks at a time). 4. Once tasks are selected, the bulk action toolbar will appear — choose your desired action (such as enable, disable, or dismiss) and apply it to all selected tasks. 5. If you have more than 100 tasks, scroll to the next page and repeat the process to act on the next batch. ✅ How to Confirm It Worked After clicking the header checkbox, every task row on the current page should show a filled or checked checkbox next to it, and a bulk action bar or button group should become visible at the top or bottom of the list. This confirms all visible tasks are selected and ready for a bulk action. After applying an action, the task statuses should update accordingly — for example, tasks marked as enabled will show an active or enabled status in the list. 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.

📊 Understanding and Improving Your Search Atlas Score

🔍 What Is the Search Atlas Score? The Search Atlas score (displayed as a value out of 100) is a composite metric that reflects your website's overall SEO health. A dramatic drop in this score — such as falling to 1/100 — usually signals one or more underlying issues that need attention. This article covers the most common reasons scores drop and practical steps you can take to investigate and improve your score. ⚠️ Why Did Your Score Drop Dramatically? A sudden, steep drop in your Search Atlas score is typically tied to one or more detectable issues. Common contributing factors include: - New or recently crawled site with thin content: If your site was just added to Search Atlas or recently re-crawled, the tool may be seeing very little published content, resulting in a near-zero baseline score. - Large number of orphaned pages: Pages that have no internal links pointing to them signal poor site architecture and can weigh heavily on your score. - Critical technical errors: Broken links, missing meta tags, or slow page speed can all negatively affect your score. - Site under active development: If your site is being rebuilt or restructured, incomplete pages or temporary redirects can distort the score significantly. 🗂️ What Are Orphaned Pages? Orphaned pages are pages on your website that exist in your sitemap or have been crawled, but receive no internal links from any other page on your site. Because no other page links to them, search engine bots may struggle to discover and index them — and users cannot navigate to them organically. Orphaned pages are a common cause of score drops because they signal disorganised site architecture. To address them: 1. Open your site audit results in Search Atlas by going to OTTO SEO → Site Audit in the left sidebar and look for any pages flagged as orphaned. 2. For each orphaned page, identify where it logically belongs in your site structure and add an internal link to it from a relevant parent or sibling page. 3. If a page has no content value, consider removing it or redirecting it to a relevant page. 4. Re-run the site audit after making changes to confirm the orphaned pages have been resolved. 🛠️ General Steps to Investigate and Improve Your Score If your score has dropped and you are unsure why, work through the following steps: 1. Open Search Atlas and navigate to OTTO SEO → Site Audit in the left sidebar to review your site audit results and any flagged issues. 2. Prioritise fixing errors listed as critical or high-impact first — these typically have the greatest effect on your overall score. 3. Address orphaned pages, broken links, and missing metadata before moving on to lower-priority items. 4. If your site is currently under development, be aware that incomplete content and structural changes can temporarily lower your score — this is expected and should improve once the site is more complete. 5. After making fixes, trigger a new crawl or audit from OTTO SEO → Site Audit in the left sidebar of Search Atlas to see your updated score. 📋 When to Contact Support If you have reviewed your audit results, addressed the flagged issues, and your score has not improved as expected, our support team can help investigate further. When reaching out, please have the following ready: - Your project or domain name as it appears in Search Atlas - A description of when the score drop occurred and approximately how large the drop was - Any specific error messages or flagged issues shown in your audit results 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.

🔍 Site Audit Keywords, Metrics, and FAQ Schema Explained

🗺️ Overview The Site Audit tool surfaces a lot of data at once, and three questions come up often: how to add keywords to a Site Audit report, what the page metrics are actually showing, and why FAQ schemas appear even when you never created them. This article answers all three. 🔑 Adding Keywords to Your Site Audit Report The Site Audit report does not have a field where you manually add or import keywords. The keyword data shown inside the report reflects keywords that are already detected by Search Atlas based on your site's current organic and paid search presence. Here is what each keyword category means in that context: - Organic Keywords — search terms for which Google currently ranks one or more of your pages. - Paid Keywords — search terms for which your site is running active paid ads. These numbers update automatically as your rankings change. You cannot manually add a keyword to this view, because it is a reflection of live data, not a custom list. If you want to track specific keywords and monitor their ranking over time, use the Rank Tracker tool: 1. In the left sidebar, click Keywords. 2. Select Rank Tracker (Keyword Rank Tracker). 3. Add the keywords you want to monitor for your domain. Rank Tracker is the correct place to build and manage a custom keyword list tied to your site's performance. For keyword research and discovery, you can also explore Keyword Magic and Keyword Gap under the same Site Explorer section in the sidebar. 📊 What the Page Metrics in Site Audit Display When you open the Site Audit report and view the pages listed, those pages represent URLs that are currently ranking in Google search results for your domain — not pages you have manually added or submitted. This is an important distinction. Search Atlas discovers and displays pages based on what Google has indexed and is actively surfacing in organic results. Common metrics shown for each page include: - Organic Traffic — estimated monthly visits driven by organic search. - Ranking Keywords — the number of keywords for which that URL ranks. - Backlinks — the number of external links pointing to that page. - Domain Rating (DR) — the authority score of your domain at the time of the last crawl. - Page Health Indicators — flags for technical issues such as missing meta descriptions, slow load times, or broken links. If a page on your site is not appearing in the report, it most likely means Google has not indexed it yet, or it is not currently ranking for any detectable keywords. Publishing the page, improving its content, and building internal links to it can help Google discover and rank it over time. ❓ Why Google Detects FAQ Schemas You Did Not Set Up Seeing FAQ schema data in your Site Audit report when you never deliberately added structured data to your site can be surprising. Here is why it happens. Google's systems automatically interpret page content and may generate or infer FAQ-style structured data from the way your content is written — particularly if your page uses a question-and-answer format, accordion sections, or heading structures that resemble an FAQ layout. Search Atlas reports what Google has actually detected and associated with your pages, not only what you have explicitly coded. This means: - If your content uses headers phrased as questions followed by answers, Google may classify that as FAQ schema. - Your CMS or theme may be automatically outputting structured data markup that you are not aware of. - A plugin or template component could be generating JSON-LD or microdata in the background. To investigate the source of the detected FAQ schema on a specific page: 1. Open the page URL in a browser. 2. Right-click and select View Page Source. 3. Search for FAQPage or application/ld+json in the source code. 4. Alternatively, paste the URL into Google's Rich Results Test to see exactly what structured data Google is reading. If you want to remove the FAQ schema, you will need to edit or disable the plugin, theme component, or code block that is generating it. If you want to keep and enhance it, Search Atlas's OTTO SEO tool (left sidebar → OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation)) can help you optimise your structured data as part of your on-page SEO workflow. ⚡ Quick Reference - To track specific keywords → Left sidebar → Keywords → Rank Tracker - To research new keywords → Left sidebar → Keywords → Keyword Magic or Keyword Gap - To investigate detected schemas → View page source or use Google's Rich Results Test - To optimise on-page SEO including schema → Left sidebar → OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation) 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.

Site Audit Duration Expectations and Processing Times

⏱️ How Long Does a Site Audit Take? Site audits at Search Atlas can take anywhere from a few minutes up to 24 hours to complete. This is completely normal and expected behavior. The exact duration depends on factors specific to your website and current system load. Do not be concerned if your audit is still processing after an hour or two — this is part of the normal workflow. You do not need to restart or re-trigger the audit while it is in progress. 🔍 What Affects Audit Processing Time? The following factors can influence how long your site audit takes to finish: - Website size: Larger sites with hundreds or thousands of pages take significantly longer to crawl than smaller sites. - Current system load: During periods of high platform usage, audits may be queued and processed in sequence, adding to overall wait time. 🗺️ Where to Monitor Your Site Audit You can check the status of your site audit at any time within the platform. Results will populate automatically once the crawl is complete. You do not need to keep the page open while the audit runs. The platform processes audits in the background, and your results will be ready when you return. ✅ When Your Audit Is Complete Once your audit finishes, you will see the full results populated in the platform. If you launched the audit and return the next day to find it complete, that is entirely expected for larger websites. ⚠️ When to Be Concerned In most cases, your audit will complete on its own within 24 hours. However, you should reach out for support if your audit has shown no progress or status change for more than 24 hours. When escalating, please have the following ready: your project name, the URL of the site being audited, and the approximate time you launched the audit. 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.

📋 Interpret and Use the Site Audit Pruning Report

🔍 What Is the Pruning Report? The Pruning Report is a section inside Site Audit that lists every page on your site alongside the SEO issues detected on it. Its purpose is to help you decide which pages are worth keeping, improving, or removing from your site entirely. Each page in the report is evaluated against a set of SEO criteria. A page is counted as healthy only when all detected issues on that page have been either resolved or deliberately marked as ignored. Until that happens, the page remains in an unresolved state and does not contribute to your healthy pages score. 📊 Why Your Healthy Pages Score Shows Zero The healthy pages metric reflects the percentage of crawled pages that have no outstanding issues. If your score is sitting at zero — or very close to it — one of the following is usually the cause: - All crawled pages have at least one unresolved issue. Even a single low-priority issue on every page is enough to keep the score at zero. - The crawl has only just completed. Scores are calculated after the crawl finishes processing. Give the platform a few minutes to update the dashboard after a fresh crawl. - No issues have been reviewed yet. The pruning report requires you to take action — resolve or ignore — before pages are marked healthy. A zero score does not automatically mean your site has severe technical problems. It most commonly means the review workflow has not been started yet. ✅ How Resolving or Ignoring Issues Affects Your Score Every page moves through a simple lifecycle inside the pruning report: 1. Crawled — the page has been discovered and scanned. 2. Issues detected — one or more SEO problems are flagged on the page. 3. Reviewed — you either fix the issue on your site and mark it resolved, or you decide the issue does not apply and mark it ignored. 4. Healthy — once every issue on a page is either resolved or ignored, the page is counted as healthy and your score improves. This means ignoring an issue is a completely valid action and counts toward your score just as much as fixing it. Ignoring does not hide a real problem — it tells the platform that you have reviewed the issue and made a conscious decision that it does not need to be addressed. ⚖️ When to Resolve vs. When to Ignore an Issue Use the guidance below to decide the right action for each flagged issue: - Resolve the issue when it is a genuine problem that could harm rankings, user experience, or crawlability — for example, a broken internal link, a missing meta description on an important landing page, or a page with duplicate title tags. - Ignore the issue when it does not apply to your site's context — for example, a "thin content" warning on a deliberately short utility page, a missing canonical on a page you intentionally left without one, or a redirect flag on a page that is correctly redirecting. - Ignore in bulk when the same issue type appears across many pages that share the same intentional structure — for instance, paginated archive pages or tag pages that are expected to have limited unique content. When in doubt, prioritise resolving issues on your highest-traffic and highest-priority pages first, then use ignore to clear lower-priority flags across the rest of your site. 🗂️ Recommended Workflow When Issue Counts Are High If your crawl has surfaced a large number of issues, working through them systematically will move your healthy pages score in the right direction without feeling overwhelming. 1. Filter by issue severity. Start with critical and high-severity issues. These have the most impact on rankings and user experience and should be resolved before moving to warnings or notices. 2. Group by issue type. Fixing one issue type across all affected pages at once is faster than reviewing page by page. For example, address all missing H1 tags in one pass before moving to the next issue category. 3. Bulk-ignore low-priority issue types. After reviewing a category, if the issues are not relevant to your site, use the bulk ignore option to clear them all at once and immediately raise your healthy pages count. 4. Re-crawl after making fixes. Once you have made technical changes on your site, trigger a new crawl so the platform can verify the issues are resolved and update the healthy pages score accordingly. 5. Review the pruning report regularly. Aim to keep the number of unreviewed pages low. A consistent review habit prevents the score from drifting back to zero after future crawls. 💡 Quick Tips - Your healthy pages score will not update in real time as you click resolve or ignore — allow a short processing window after taking bulk actions. - Pages added since the last crawl will not appear until you run a new crawl. - Ignoring an issue only affects the platform's reporting — it does not change anything on your live website. 🆘 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.

🔍 Site Audit Metrics, Rankings, and FAQ Schema Explained

🗺️ Overview This article answers three of the most common questions about the Site Audit tool: how to track keywords inside your audit report, what the page-level metrics mean, and why Google may be detecting FAQ schemas you did not manually create. ➕ How to Add Keywords to Your Site Audit Report Site Audit page metrics are more meaningful when keyword data is attached to each page. Follow these steps to connect keywords to your audit: 1. Go to Left sidebar → Keywords → Rank Tracker and confirm the keywords you want to track are already added to your project. If they are not, add them there first. 2. Return to Left sidebar → Site Metrics (Site Explorer) and open your target site. 3. Inside the Site Audit report, navigate to OTTO SEO → Site Audit → Page Explorer. Each page will display its associated ranking keyword if one has been matched from your Rank Tracker list. 4. To research additional keyword opportunities before adding them, use Left sidebar → Keywords → Keyword Magic to find relevant terms, or use Left sidebar → Keywords → Keyword Gap to identify keywords your competitors rank for that you do not. 5. Once you add new keywords to Rank Tracker, the Site Audit report will reflect the updated keyword-to-page mapping on the next scheduled crawl or when you manually trigger a re-crawl. Tip: Assign one primary keyword per page for the clearest performance data. Pages without a matched keyword will still show technical metrics but will not display ranking position data. 📊 What the Page Metrics Show Each page in your Site Audit report includes a set of metrics that help you evaluate both technical health and search performance. Here is what the key metrics mean: - Health Score — A 0–100 score reflecting the overall technical condition of the page. Issues such as missing meta tags, slow load time, or broken links reduce this score. - Ranking Position — The current Google search position for the page's matched keyword, pulled from Rank Tracker data. - Impressions & Clicks — Data sourced from your connected Google Search Console property, showing how often the page appears in search results and how often users click through. - Page Speed — A performance indicator based on Core Web Vitals signals. Pages flagged here may benefit from image compression or script optimisation. - Issues Count — The total number of detected on-page or technical SEO issues. Click the count to drill into a categorised list of what needs fixing. - Schema Detected — The structured data types Google has found on the page, which may include types added by plugins, themes, or your CMS automatically. Metrics refresh each time the site is crawled. You can trigger a manual re-crawl at any time from the Site Audit dashboard. ❓ Why Is Google Detecting FAQ Schema I Didn't Set Up? This is a common source of confusion. Seeing FAQ schema listed under Schema Detected does not always mean you added it intentionally. Here are the most frequent reasons it appears: - WordPress plugins — Plugins such as Yoast SEO, Rank Math, or All in One SEO can automatically generate FAQ schema from accordion blocks or question-and-answer formatted content on your page. - Page builder blocks — Builders like Elementor, Divi, or Gutenberg include FAQ block types that inject structured data by default when used. - Theme features — Some premium themes include built-in schema markup for common content patterns, including FAQs, without requiring any manual configuration. - CMS or e-commerce platforms — Platforms like Shopify or Wix may add schema automatically to product pages or help content. If you want to verify exactly where the schema is coming from, use Google's Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results) and paste your page URL. The tool will show detected schema and flag the source code location. You can then trace it back to the plugin, block, or theme generating it. Is the FAQ schema a problem? Not necessarily. Valid FAQ schema that matches the page content can improve your appearance in Google Search with rich results. However, if the schema is inaccurate or does not reflect real content on the page, you should remove or correct it to avoid a Google manual action. 🛠️ Quick Troubleshooting Checklist - Keywords not showing on pages → Confirm they are added in Rank Tracker first, then re-crawl. - Metrics look outdated → Trigger a manual re-crawl from the Site Audit dashboard. - Unexpected schema detected → Use Google's Rich Results Test to identify the source plugin or theme. - Health Score is low → Click the Issues Count on the affected page for a prioritised fix list. - No impressions or clicks data → Check that Google Search Console is connected to your Search Atlas project under project settings. 💬 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. Additional Notes The Site Audit report does not have a field where you manually add keywords. Organic Keywords = terms Google currently ranks your pages for; Paid Keywords = terms with active paid ads. These update automatically and cannot be manually edited — they reflect live data, not a custom list.

⚡ Access and Compare Site Audit Baseline Metrics

What Are Baseline Metrics? When you run your first site audit in Search Atlas, the platform captures a snapshot of your site's performance at that moment. This snapshot is your baseline — the starting point you can use to measure improvement, spot regressions, and demonstrate SEO progress over time. Baseline data typically includes technical health scores, keyword rankings, organic traffic estimates, and on-page signals recorded during your initial audit run. How to Access Your Audit Baseline and History Because the exact location of audit history and baseline snapshot features can vary depending on your account setup and current platform version, the most reliable way to locate your baseline data is to: 1. Log in to Search Atlas and navigate to the site auditing area of the platform. 2. Look for a history, snapshots, or previous audits section within your site's audit or reporting view — this is where past audit runs are typically stored. 3. Identify the earliest recorded audit entry for your site — this is your original baseline. 4. Open that entry to review the metrics captured at the time of your first scan. If you are unsure where audit history is located in your account, a support teammate can point you to the correct section for your plan and setup. How to Compare Baseline Against Current Metrics To measure progress, you will want to compare your baseline audit data against a more recent audit. The general approach is: 1. Open your baseline audit entry and note the key metrics you want to track (for example, overall health score, number of issues, or crawl errors). 2. Open your most recent audit entry for the same site. 3. Compare the values side by side to identify improvements or regressions since your starting point. If the platform surfaces a built-in comparison or date-range filter feature in your audit view, you can use that to generate a structured before-and-after report. A support teammate can confirm whether this option is available on your plan and walk you through how to use it. How to Track Keyword Ranking Changes Over Time For keyword-level progress, look for Left sidebar → Keywords → Rank Tracker within Search Atlas that allows you to filter by date range. Setting the start date to match your original baseline audit date will let you view how individual keyword positions have shifted since you began tracking. If you are not sure which section of the platform contains rank history for your site, reach out to the support team for guidance specific to your account. 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.

🗂️ Managing Pages in Knowledge Graph Top Pages

🔍 What Is the Knowledge Graph Top Pages Section? The Knowledge Graph Top Pages section displays the pages on your website that Search Atlas has identified as most relevant based on your site's data, link structure, and content signals. This list is automatically generated to give you a quick overview of your most significant pages. ❓ Can You Delete Pages from This Section? At this time, pages listed in the Knowledge Graph Top Pages section cannot be manually deleted or removed by users. The list is dynamically populated by Search Atlas algorithms based on your site's crawl data and internal signals — it is not a manually curated list. Because this section reflects your site's actual structure and authority signals, removing a page from view here would not affect how Search Atlas processes or analyses your site. ⚙️ Why a Page Appears in Top Pages A page is surfaced in the Top Pages section based on factors such as: - Internal link authority — pages that receive a high number of internal links tend to rank higher in this list - Crawl frequency — pages visited more often during site crawls are considered more prominent - Content signals — pages with well-structured, topically rich content may be weighted more heavily - Traffic data — if Google Search Console is connected, pages with stronger organic performance may surface here 💡 What You Can Do Instead While direct removal is not available, there are a few steps you can take to influence which pages appear most prominently over time: 1. Review your internal linking structure — reducing internal links pointing to a page you consider less important can lower its prominence in the Knowledge Graph over time. 2. Use the filtering and search options — within the Knowledge Graph interface, use available filters to focus your view on the pages most relevant to your work, so less useful pages are not the centre of attention. 3. Exclude pages at the crawl level — if certain pages should not be crawled or analysed at all (such as staging URLs or thank-you pages), consider using your robots.txt or adjusting crawl settings in Search Atlas to exclude them from future crawls. This may reduce their prominence over time. 4. Keep your sitemap up to date — ensuring your sitemap only includes the canonical, production-ready pages you want Search Atlas to prioritise helps guide the algorithm toward the right content. 🔄 When Does the List Refresh? The Knowledge Graph Top Pages list updates automatically after each site crawl. Changes you make to your internal linking or site structure will be reflected once Search Atlas recrawls your site. Depending on your crawl schedule and site size, this may take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. 🛠️ Still Seeing Irrelevant Pages? If a page that should not exist on your site at all (for example, a deleted or redirected page) continues to appear, it is likely still being picked up during crawls. To resolve this: - Ensure the page returns a 404 or 301 redirect rather than a 200 status code - Remove the URL from your sitemap if it is still listed there - Trigger a fresh crawl in Search Atlas after making these changes Once the recrawl confirms the page is no longer accessible, it should drop out of the Top Pages section naturally. 💬 Need Further 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.

📊 Add Competitors to Content Velocity Correctly

🔍 Overview Content Velocity lets you track how often your site and your competitors publish new content. If you are having trouble adding competitors directly inside Content Velocity, the correct approach is to add them through Site Auditor first — they will then become available within Content Velocity. ⚙️ Why Can't I Add Competitors Directly in Content Velocity? Content Velocity draws its competitor list from your Site Auditor project. Competitors need to be configured at the Site Auditor level before they will appear as options inside Content Velocity. This ensures a consistent competitor set is shared across the tools linked to your project. 🛠️ How to Add Competitors via Site Auditor To make competitors available in Content Velocity, add them through Site Auditor: 1. In the left sidebar, navigate to Site Auditor. 2. Open the relevant project (or create a new one if needed). 3. Locate the competitors or project settings area within your Site Auditor project. 4. Add the competitor domain there and save your changes. 5. Return to Content Velocity within your project — your added competitor should now be available. If you are unsure exactly where to find the competitor settings inside your Site Auditor project, or if the competitor still does not appear in Content Velocity after adding it, please reach out to our support team for guidance specific to your account setup. ❓ Frequently Asked Questions Can I add competitors directly inside Content Velocity? Competitors need to be added at the Site Auditor project level first. Once added there, they will be available to use within Content Velocity. My competitor was added in Site Auditor but is not showing in Content Velocity — what should I do? Allow a short time for the data to sync. If the competitor still does not appear, contact our support team and have your project name and the competitor domain ready so we can investigate. 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. Additional Notes Using a different project in Content Velocity: Make sure the project you select in Content Velocity matches the one where you added competitors in Site Auditor, otherwise competitors may not appear. Also: select the same domain project you updated in Site Auditor, then choose competitors from the available list.

📊 SEO Score vs Content Score in the Editor

📖 Overview When editing an article in Search Atlas, you will notice two distinct scores: the SEO Score and the Content Score. These scores measure different aspects of your content's quality and optimization. This article explains where to find each score and what each one means. 🗺️ Where to Find Your Article Scores Both scores are accessible through the Content section of Search Atlas. Follow these steps to locate them: 1. Click Content in the left sidebar. 2. You will land on the Content Genius home page, which lists all your articles. The Content Score for each article is displayed directly in this article list. 3. To open an article and view both scores, click on the article title. 4. Once inside the article editor, look at the right-hand panel. The SEO Score and the Content Score are both displayed here at the article level. 📈 What Is the Content Score? The Content Score reflects the overall quality and depth of your written content. It evaluates factors such as: - Use of relevant terms and semantically related keywords - Coverage of key topics that top-ranking competitors address - Word count and content comprehensiveness - Readability and structure The Content Score is the value shown on the Content Genius home page next to each article, giving you a quick snapshot of content quality without opening the editor. This score updates as you make changes inside the article editor. 🔍 What Is the SEO Score? The SEO Score is a broader on-page optimization metric. It evaluates technical and structural SEO elements within the article, such as: - Keyword placement in the title, headings, and meta description - Internal and external linking - Image alt text usage - On-page SEO best practices aligned with search engine guidelines The SEO Score gives you a signal of how well the article is optimized for search engines beyond content depth alone. ⚖️ Key Differences at a Glance - Content Score — measures content quality, topical coverage, and semantic richness. - SEO Score — measures on-page technical optimization and structural SEO factors. - The Content Score is visible in the article list on the Content Genius home page. - The SEO Score is visible inside the article editor in the right-hand panel. - Both scores update in real time as you edit your article. 💡 Tips for Improving Both Scores - Use the keyword and topic suggestions in the right-hand panel to raise your Content Score by covering recommended terms. - Check the SEO recommendations panel for action items such as adding your target keyword to the meta description or adjusting heading structure to improve your SEO Score. - Aim to improve both scores together — strong content quality combined with solid on-page SEO gives your article the best chance of ranking. 🛠️ Still Have Questions? 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.

📊 Find and Understand Article-Level SEO Score

📋 Overview Search Atlas displays two distinct scores for your articles: the SEO Score and the Content Score. Customers sometimes confuse these two metrics or have trouble locating the SEO Score at the article level. This article explains what each score measures and how to find them in the platform. 🔍 Where to Find the Article-Level SEO Score The SEO Score is available inside the Content Genius workspace at the individual article level. Follow these steps to locate it: 1. Navigate to Content Genius from the main left-hand navigation menu. 2. Open the specific article you want to review by clicking on its title. 3. Once inside the article editor, look for the SEO Score displayed within the article view. If you are still having difficulty locating the SEO Score for a specific article, note the exact name of the article and which section of Content Genius you are working in before reaching out to support — this will help the team guide you to the correct location quickly. 📝 SEO Score vs. Content Score — What Is the Difference? These two scores measure different aspects of your article's quality. Understanding the distinction helps you improve your content more effectively. - SEO Score: Evaluates on-page SEO factors such as keyword usage, meta information, heading structure, internal linking, and other technical SEO signals. It reflects how well the article is optimised for search engines. - Content Score: Measures the depth, relevance, and topical coverage of the written content itself. It is driven by how thoroughly your article covers the target topic compared to top-ranking competitors. In short, the SEO Score tells you how technically sound your article is for search, while the Content Score tells you how comprehensive and relevant the content is to the reader and topic. 💡 Tips for Improving Your SEO Score - Ensure your target keyword appears naturally throughout the article, including in key structural elements such as headings and the opening paragraph. - Review and complete any meta information associated with your article, such as the meta title and meta description. - Add internal links to and from the article where relevant to strengthen your site's link structure. - Revisit your heading hierarchy to make sure it follows a logical structure. 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.

🚀 Content Velocity

Content Velocity is an analytical tool that tracks your website's publication frequency and patterns. By analyzing sitemap data, it delivers detailed temporal insights into how consistently you publish content, so you can identify publishing gaps, benchmark against competitors, and align your content output with SEO goals. 🚀 Accessing Content Velocity Content Velocity navigation path Navigation path: Left Sidebar → OTTO SEO → Site Audit → Content Velocity. 📊 Dashboard Components The Content Velocity dashboard shows how often a website publishes content and how that cadence evolves over time. URL Publication Tracking — displays all published URLs detected from the sitemap, shows publication timestamps, provides direct links to live content, and lets you filter and compare across multiple URLs, content sections, or subdirectories within the same project. Daily View — an interactive line chart of publication frequency by day, with hover-enabled data points that highlight high-volume publishing days and detect gaps or irregular posting patterns. Multiple colored lines represent different selected URLs. Monthly Distribution — a stacked bar chart of monthly publishing volume, color-coded by URL or content category, useful for spotting seasonality and periods of decline or inactivity. Yearly Overview — a pie chart summarizing annual publication totals, useful for evaluating whether content velocity is scaling over time. 🏆 Competitor Content Analysis From the dashboard, you can switch between yearly and monthly frequency, select a specific year, and use + Add competitor to compare publishing cadence across domains — helping you benchmark your content velocity against competing sites. Important notes: Content Velocity updates daily from sitemaps, keeps historical data for long-term analysis, and can be filtered by sitemap and date range. 💡 Best Practices Monitor content consistency to maintain steady publishing, use historical insights to plan future content schedules, identify patterns that correlate with growth, track seasonal publishing spikes, and measure how frequency impacts performance. ⚙️ Whitelisting Search Atlas IPs in CDNs When running site audits, Search Atlas crawlers may be blocked by CDNs (Content Delivery Networks). To fix this, whitelist all Search Atlas crawler IPs listed in our Site Audit Knowledge Base article. If you're using Cloudflare, select Search Atlas from the Verified Bots list. Once whitelisted, Search Atlas will crawl and monitor your site health without issues. ❓ FAQs How often does Content Velocity update? The tool refreshes daily using your sitemap data. Can I track more than one competitor? Yes, multiple competitors can be added and monitored simultaneously. Why isn't my site audit working? Your CDN may be blocking crawlers. Whitelist Search Atlas IPs or enable verified bots in Cloudflare. Content Velocity empowers you to make data-driven publishing decisions by analyzing trends, maintaining consistency, and benchmarking competitors. With daily updates and historical tracking, it provides the foundation for a smarter content strategy. 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.

🗑️ Remove OTTO Pixel Linkage to Delete Site Audit Projects

🔍 Understanding the Two Separate Issues If you cannot delete a Site Audit project, there are two distinct problems that can block you — and they require different solutions. Confusing them leads to wasted effort. - OTTO pixel linkage (primary blocker): A Site Audit project tied to an OTTO pixel cannot be deleted until that pixel link is removed. This is true even if the OTTO session is inactive. - 5-project cap (secondary constraint): Your plan limits you to five active Site Audit projects. Deep Freeze can help preserve projects without counting against this cap — but only after the OTTO linkage is resolved. Deep Freeze does not remove pixel linkage and will not unblock deletion on its own. If your projects named canary, armbarmarketing, or any other project refuse to delete, resolve the OTTO linkage first using the steps below. ⚙️ Step 1 — Locate the Linked OTTO Pixel 1. In the left sidebar, click OTTO SEO and then open SEO Automation inside it (/seo-automation-v3). 2. Review all OTTO sessions listed, including inactive ones. An inactive session still holds its pixel link to the Site Audit project. 3. Identify the session whose pixel corresponds to the project you want to delete. The session name or connected domain will match the Site Audit project name. 🔓 Step 2 — Unlink or Delete the OTTO Pixel You have two options depending on whether you want to keep the OTTO session or remove it entirely. Option A — Delete the entire OTTO session (recommended if you no longer need it): 1. Inside OTTO SEO V3, locate the OTTO session linked to the project you want to remove. 2. Open the session settings or the three-dot menu next to the session. 3. Select Delete Session and confirm. This removes the pixel and severs the link to the Site Audit project. Option B — Unlink the pixel while keeping the OTTO session: 1. Inside the OTTO session, navigate to the Pixel / Tracking settings section. 2. Find the pixel currently linked to the Site Audit project. 3. Select the option to Disconnect or Unlink the pixel from the project. 4. Save your changes. After completing either option, the Site Audit project is no longer protected by the pixel link. 🗑️ Step 3 — Delete the Site Audit Project 1. In the left sidebar, go to Site Metrics → Site Explorer to open the projects list (/site-explorer/list). 2. Locate the project you want to remove (for example, canary or armbarmarketing). 3. Open the three-dot menu or settings icon next to the project. 4. Select Delete Project and confirm. The option should now be available because the OTTO pixel link has been removed. 📦 Step 4 (Optional) — Use Deep Freeze to Manage the 5-Project Cap Once OTTO linkage is no longer blocking your projects, you can use Deep Freeze to stay within the 5-project cap without permanently deleting projects you want to keep. - Deep Freeze preserves a project's existing data and pauses crawling so the project does not count as an active slot. - Use this for projects you want to return to later rather than delete. - Important: Deep Freeze does not resolve OTTO pixel linkage. Always unlink the pixel first if deletion is your goal. ✅ Quick Reference — Which Solution Fixes Which Problem - Cannot delete a project → Unlink or delete the associated OTTO pixel (Steps 1–3 above). - Hit the 5-project cap → Delete unwanted projects (after unlinking pixels) or Deep Freeze projects you want to keep. - Deep Freeze alone → Does not unblock deletion. It only frees an active slot for projects that are not pixel-locked. 💬 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.

🚫 Exclude Tracking Pixels from Site Audit Alt Text

🔍 Why Tracking Pixels Appear in Alt Text Tasks When Search Atlas crawls your site, it detects every image — including invisible 1×1 tracking pixels served by third-party domains such as bat.bing.com, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, and similar advertising or analytics services. These images have no meaningful content, so adding alt text to them does not improve accessibility or SEO. However, because they are technically missing alt attributes, they appear in your Site Audit alt text tasks and can inflate the issue count significantly, dragging down your overall SEO score. The correct fix is to exclude these third-party URLs directly inside OTTO settings so Search Atlas ignores them during analysis. ⚙️ How to Exclude Tracking Pixel URLs in OTTO 1. Open the platform and navigate to OTTO SEO → SEO Automation using the left sidebar (URL: /seo-automation-v3). 2. Select your project and open OTTO for the site you want to configure. 3. Locate the Settings or Exclusions section within OTTO. 4. Find the field that allows you to add URLs or URL patterns to exclude from audits. 5. Enter the tracking pixel domain or URL pattern you want to ignore. For example: - bat.bing.com — Microsoft Advertising pixel - facebook.com/tr — Facebook Pixel - google-analytics.com/collect — Google Analytics beacon - googletagmanager.com — Google Tag Manager 6. Save your exclusions. 7. Re-run the Site Audit so Search Atlas recrawls your site with the new exclusion rules applied. Once the audit completes, the excluded tracking pixel URLs will no longer appear in your alt text tasks or count against your SEO score. ✅ How to Confirm the Exclusions Worked After the audit finishes, open your Site Audit results and navigate to the Images or Alt Text task list. The number of missing alt text issues should drop substantially. If you still see entries from the excluded domains, double-check that the URL pattern you entered matches the exact format shown in the audit detail — including any subdomains or path prefixes. 💡 Best Practices for Managing Third-Party Image Exclusions - Use domain-level patterns where possible. Excluding the root domain (e.g., bat.bing.com) covers all paths served from that domain, so you do not need to add individual pixel URLs one by one. - Review your exclusion list periodically. If you add new advertising platforms or analytics tools, add their beacon domains to the exclusion list before your next audit to keep your score accurate. - Only exclude true third-party tracking assets. Do not exclude images hosted on your own domain or CDN — those may have legitimate alt text requirements that affect real users and accessibility scores. - Document your exclusions. Keep a record of which domains you have excluded and why, so your team understands why certain images do not appear in audit tasks. 🧩 Understanding the Impact on Your SEO Score Search Atlas calculates your SEO score based on actionable issues on your site. Tracking pixels are not actionable — you cannot and should not add descriptive alt text to a 1×1 invisible beacon. By excluding them, your score reflects only real opportunities for improvement, giving you a more accurate picture of your site's SEO health and helping you prioritise the tasks that actually move the needle. 🆘 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.

🔍 How to Access Site Audit in Search Atlas

Site Audit is the tool inside Search Atlas that lets you analyze your website for technical SEO issues. Whether you want to review a previous audit or kick off a new one, here is how to get there in the current interface. Follow these steps to access Site Audit: - Step 1: Look at the left-hand sidebar and click on the OTTO SEO section. - Step 2: In the menu that appears, click Site Audit. - Step 3: Click All Audits. The All Audits page is your central hub for Site Audit activity. From here you can see every audit that has already been run for your projects, as well as start new audits whenever you need them. Note: if your account is whitelabeled, this section may show your agency's own brand name instead of "OTTO SEO." If you are having trouble locating the Site Audit section or the All Audits option does not appear as expected, please use the in-app live chat widget to chat with a human teammate who can guide you through the interface.

JavaScript Rendering in Search Atlas Site Audits: When and How to Use It

Modern websites increasingly rely on JavaScript to render content — from single-page applications (SPAs) to dynamically injected components and client-side personalization. Standard HTML crawlers miss this content entirely, which means audits of JS-heavy sites can produce misleading results. Search Atlas includes an optional JavaScript rendering toggle to ensure crawls reflect exactly what Googlebot sees. What JavaScript Rendering Does When the JavaScript rendering toggle is enabled, Search Atlas's crawler processes: - HTML — the initial document structure - CSS — styling and layout rules that affect content visibility - JavaScript — scripts that inject, modify, or generate content after page load The result is a fully rendered view of each page, including client-side rendered content, dynamically injected elements, and any DOM changes that occur after the initial response. This mirrors how Googlebot evaluates modern web applications. When to Enable JavaScript Rendering JS rendering should only be enabled when it is genuinely needed, because it significantly increases crawl time and resource usage. Common scenarios where it is appropriate: - Single-page applications built with frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular - Sites where critical content is injected after page load - Pages relying on client-side personalization or A/B testing tools - Implementations using pixel-based or script-based content delivery In some cases, Search Atlas will automatically enable JS rendering when it is required — for example, with pixel-based implementations where critical signals only appear after script execution. When You Don't Need JavaScript Rendering Server-side rendered (SSR) environments do not require JavaScript rendering because the content is already present in the initial HTML response. This includes: - Sites using the Search Atlas WordPress plugin - Sites using the Search Atlas Cloudflare integration - Traditional server-rendered CMS platforms For these setups, all changes and optimizations are reflected in the raw HTML, so enabling JS rendering would only add overhead without producing different results. Balancing Accuracy and Performance The JavaScript rendering toggle gives teams flexibility to match crawl behavior to their actual rendering architecture. Use it when accuracy demands it, and leave it off when your stack delivers content in the initial HTML. This ensures audits are both accurate and efficient — without unnecessary performance tradeoffs.

Understanding JavaScript Rendering and Search Atlas Site Auditor

When auditing websites, JavaScript rendering plays an important role in how crawlers interpret and display content changes. The Search Atlas Site Auditor supports JavaScript rendering today, and this article explains how it currently works as well as a known limitation that affects certain OTTO deployments. ⚙️ Current Limitations of the Search Atlas Site Auditor The Search Atlas Site Auditor supports JavaScript rendering. However, there is a known limitation when OTTO is deployed via the manual_script (pixel) installation. This means: - The auditor can crawl and analyze pages with JavaScript rendering enabled. - When OTTO is deployed via the pixel (manual script) installation, the crawler may currently display the original source titles rather than the OTTO-deployed titles, even when JS rendering is active. This is a known issue under active remediation. 🧩 Example: If OTTO has deployed updated title tags or meta descriptions to your site via the pixel script, these changes may not be reflected in the Site Auditor report even though they are live on the page. 🚀 The Search Atlas Approach to Fixing This Our team is actively working to resolve the known issue affecting OTTO pixel deployments so that the Site Auditor accurately reflects OTTO-deployed content. Once resolved, this update will allow the tool to: - Accurately detect OTTO-deployed titles and meta descriptions - Audit dynamic website changes consistently - Provide more comprehensive and accurate crawl reports ✅ Important Note: Even though the Site Auditor may not currently reflect OTTO-deployed changes for pixel installations, Google can. Search engines like Google use advanced rendering engines to process JavaScript content, meaning that any changes made via JavaScript can still be visible and indexable by Google's crawlers. So, if the auditor doesn't reflect a recent fix, that doesn't necessarily mean the issue remains unfixed on the live site, as Google may already be processing the JavaScript-rendered version correctly. Website Studio users: If your site is hosted in Website Studio with a connected custom domain and OTTO deployments (such as meta descriptions or title tags) are not applying as expected, OTTO behavior may differ from external sites that use the pixel script. Please verify your script installation, confirm your custom domain is properly connected, and contact support if deployed changes are not being reflected. 🔮 Moving Forward The Search Atlas development team is committed to continuous improvement. Upcoming updates will refine JavaScript rendering accuracy and resolve the OTTO pixel limitation described above, keeping the Site Auditor aligned with other industry-leading crawlers. In the meantime: - Continue optimizing your site for search engines that already render JavaScript. - Rest assured that JavaScript-based updates on your pages — including OTTO deployments — are still recognized by Google. Stay tuned for future releases as we make the Search Atlas Site Auditor even more powerful and precise. 🔮 Moving Forward The Search Atlas development team is committed to continuous improvement. Upcoming updates will refine JavaScript rendering accuracy and resolve the OTTO pixel limitation described above, keeping the Site Auditor aligned with other industry-leading crawlers. In the meantime: - Continue optimizing your site for search engines that already render JavaScript. - Rest assured that JavaScript-based updates on your pages — including OTTO deployments — are still recognized by Google. Stay tuned for future releases as we make the Search Atlas Site Auditor even more powerful and precise.

📝 Content Length and OG Descriptions Explained

📖 Overview When optimizing pages in Search Atlas, you will come across settings for content length and OG (Open Graph) descriptions. These settings help search engines and social platforms understand your page. This article explains what each one means and shows you how to add AI-generated descriptions in just a few clicks. 📏 What Content Length Means Content length refers to how much written text a page contains. Search Atlas groups pages into ranges so you can quickly spot pages that may need more detail. A page marked as short typically has a low word count, which often means it may not fully cover a topic or give search engines enough context to rank it well. - Short: A low word count. These pages may benefit from more detail, examples, or supporting information. - Medium: A moderate amount of content that covers the core topic. - Long: In-depth content that thoroughly explores a subject. There is no single correct length for every page. The right amount depends on the topic, the intent behind the search, and how much your competitors cover. Product or service pages such as those for Galserv should include enough content to clearly describe the offering, answer common customer questions, and support your target keywords. As a general guide, aim to move short pages toward a medium or long range when the topic has room for genuinely useful detail. Focus on quality and relevance rather than adding filler text simply to raise the word count. If the content length range shown in Search Atlas does not appear to match the actual word count on your page, refresh the page's data before acting on it. A previously reported discrepancy between the displayed word count and the content length category has been resolved. 🌐 What an OG Description Is An OG (Open Graph) description is a short summary of your page that appears when the page is shared on social platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or messaging apps. It works alongside the OG title and OG image to create the preview card people see in their feed. While the OG description does not directly influence search rankings, a clear and compelling summary encourages more clicks when your content is shared. Keep it concise, accurate, and focused on the value the page offers. A good OG description is usually one to two sentences and reflects what the page is actually about. 🤖 How to Add AI-Generated Descriptions Search Atlas can generate descriptions for you, saving time and helping you maintain a consistent tone across your pages. Follow these steps: 1. Open the page you want to optimize within Search Atlas. 2. Locate the metadata section that contains the meta description or OG description field. 3. Click the AI generate option next to the field. 4. Review the suggested text. The AI uses your existing page content to create a relevant summary. 5. Edit the wording if needed so it matches your brand voice and includes your main keyword naturally. 6. Save your changes to apply the new description. You can regenerate a description as many times as you like until you are happy with the result. Always review AI suggestions before saving to make sure they accurately represent the page. If your site is built with a page builder such as Divi or Elementor, review the generated OG description especially carefully. An earlier issue where the OG description could auto-fill with raw page-builder shortcode has been fixed, but confirming the preview text is clean before you save avoids publishing unwanted markup. 💡 Best Practices - Match length to intent: Add more content only when it genuinely helps the reader understand the topic. - Keep descriptions unique: Give each page its own OG and meta description rather than reusing the same text. - Front-load key information: Place the most important details at the start of your descriptions. - Include relevant keywords: Work your target terms in naturally without overstuffing. - Review AI output: Treat generated text as a strong starting point, then refine it. Additional Notes Short ~300–600w for FAQs/local pages; Optimized (Medium) ~800–1,200w for blog/service pages; Long-Form ~1,500–2,500+w for pillar/competitive topics. For local keywords use Short/Optimized; for service explainers/comparisons consider longer form.

📊 Why Your Content Score Isn't Improving in OTTO

Your content score measures the on-page optimization of your existing pages, not how much new content you publish. To raise it, approve and deploy the pending OTTO recommendations in your dashboard. 📊 What the Content Score Measures The content score reflects how many of OTTO's content recommendations you have approved and deployed across your site. It tracks on-page optimization fixes, such as headings, meta titles, meta descriptions, canonical links, and meta keywords on your current pages. Because the score is tied to these recommendations, it stays flat until you act on them. A score that holds at the same number means those fixes are still waiting in your dashboard. 🆕 Why Publishing New Articles Doesn't Move the Content Score Publishing new content builds topical coverage, which is how broadly your site covers the subjects your audience searches for. New articles do not change the content score. The content score measures optimization of your existing pages. New posts add coverage, but they do not approve or deploy the on-page fixes the score is built from, so the number stays the same no matter how many you publish. ✅ How to Increase Your Content Score To move the score, work through the pending OTTO recommendations in your dashboard and deploy them. Follow these steps: 1. Open your OTTO dashboard. 2. Locate the pending content recommendations, grouped by type. 3. Review and approve the heading optimizations. 4. Approve the meta titles and meta descriptions. 5. Approve the canonical link fixes. 6. Approve the meta keywords. 7. Deploy the approved recommendations to your site. As each batch deploys, your content score rises to reflect the newly optimized pages. 📋 Example: Pending Recommendations That Hold a Score Down A score can stay flat when large volumes of recommendations remain pending. For example, an account holding at a score of 33 had the following waiting in the dashboard: - 530 of 553 heading optimizations pending. - 199 meta titles and descriptions pending. - 39 canonical links pending. - 199 meta keywords pending. Clearing these pending items is exactly what raises the score. 🛠️ If Your Content Score Still Won't Move If the score stays the same after you deploy recommendations, check the following: - Confirm the recommendations show a deployed status, not just approved. - Make sure you are reviewing the pages tied to OTTO, since the score measures existing optimized pages. - Allow time for deployed changes to register in the dashboard. Once your deployed recommendations register, the content score reflects the improved on-page optimization. 🔍 Why Your Content Score Might Stay Stuck Even With Recommendations Sometimes the score stalls for reasons beyond pending recommendations. If you have deployed your fixes and the number still won't budge, check for these issues: - OTTO is still processing. If your OTTO dashboard shows 0 total pages or no recommendations appear, your project may still be processing. Wait a few minutes and refresh, or contact support if the issue persists. - Inactive OTTO pixel. Confirm the OTTO pixel is installed and active on your site, since deploying recommendations relies on it. - Quota or crawl budget exhaustion. If you have used up your quota or crawl budget, new pages and recommendations cannot be processed until it refreshes. - Slow site performance. If you don't see any pending recommendations, your site may be loading too slowly for our crawler to scan it properly. Check site performance and contact your hosting provider if needed. 🎯 You now know that your content score tracks deployed on-page fixes, not new articles. Open your OTTO dashboard, approve and deploy the pending heading, meta, and canonical recommendations, and watch your content score climb.