🎯 Overview
OTTO offers two distinct ways to evaluate your site after changes: an immediate recrawl you can trigger manually, and a weekly analysis cycle that runs automatically in the background. Knowing which one to use — and what each one detects — ensures you get accurate feedback after making code or structural updates.
⚡ Immediate Recrawl: What It Does and When to Use It
The immediate recrawl button lets you re-check your site on demand without waiting for the scheduled cycle. Use this option after making surface-level fixes such as updating meta tags, adjusting title tags, fixing on-page copy, or resolving schema markup issues that do not involve changes to your site's architecture or codebase.
What the immediate recrawl detects:
- Updated meta titles and descriptions
- Fixed heading tags (H1, H2, etc.)
- Corrected image alt text
- Resolved internal linking issues on existing pages
- Schema and structured data updates on live pages
- Changes to on-page content and keyword usage
What the immediate recrawl does NOT detect:
- Deleted or redirected pages
- Codebase-level modifications
- New pages added to the site
- Changes to site architecture or navigation structure
- Server-side rendering updates or framework-level changes
Timeline: Results from an immediate recrawl are typically reflected in OTTO within a few minutes to a couple of hours, depending on your site's size.
🗓️ Weekly Analysis Cycle: What It Does
The weekly analysis is an automated, deep-scan cycle that OTTO runs on a recurring schedule. This cycle is designed to catch structural and architectural changes that a surface-level crawl cannot detect. If you have made significant updates to your codebase, deleted pages, added new sections, or restructured your site navigation, you will need to wait for — or be aware of — the weekly cycle to see those changes reflected in OTTO's recommendations.
What the weekly analysis detects:
- Deleted or newly added pages across the site
- Codebase and framework-level modifications
- Changes to site architecture and internal linking patterns
- New or removed URL structures and redirects
- Shifts in crawl depth and page indexability
- Broad technical SEO changes across the full site
Timeline: The weekly analysis runs automatically every seven days. There is no manual trigger for the full weekly cycle — it operates on a fixed schedule set by OTTO. After the cycle completes, OTTO updates its recommendations to reflect all structural changes detected.
🖱️ How to Trigger an Immediate Recrawl
- In the left sidebar, click OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation) to open the OTTO dashboard.
- Select the site project you want to recrawl.
- Navigate to Site Audit → Overview (Website Overview) and locate the Recrawl Site button.
- Click Recrawl Site to start the immediate crawl process.
- Wait for the crawl to complete — a progress indicator will confirm when it is finished.
- Once complete, review the updated recommendations to confirm your fixes have been recognised.
✅ Choosing the Right Option After Making Changes
Use the table below as a quick reference to decide which process applies to your situation:
- Fixed a meta tag, title, or on-page content? → Use the immediate recrawl button. Results will appear within hours.
- Updated schema or structured data on an existing page? → Use the immediate recrawl button.
- Deleted pages, added new pages, or restructured your site architecture? → Wait for the next weekly analysis cycle for accurate results.
- Made changes to your codebase or server-side rendering? → Wait for the weekly analysis cycle, as these changes require a deep structural scan.
- Not sure which category your change falls into? → Run the immediate recrawl first. If OTTO's recommendations do not update as expected, the change likely requires the weekly analysis cycle to be fully detected.
⏳ Timeline Summary
- Immediate recrawl: Triggered manually; results typically within a few minutes to a few hours.
- Weekly analysis: Runs automatically every 7 days; no manual trigger available; covers all structural and codebase-level changes.
💬 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.