Troubleshooting: Data Missing or Mismatched

📧 Fixing Report Emails Sent to Wrong Addresses

🔍 Why Reports Go to the Wrong Address Every scheduled report in Search Atlas has its own recipient list. That list is set when the report is first scheduled and does not automatically sync with your account email or your current team roster. This is why a report can arrive at an address that is not registered on your account, or keep reaching a teammate who was removed months ago. Common causes include: - The report was scheduled with a different email before your current account email was set. - A former team member's address was never removed from the report's recipient list. - The email toggle is switched on while the visible recipient list looks empty, so an older stored address is still being used. Changing your profile email or deleting a user does not update existing report schedules. The fix is to edit each scheduled report directly. 🛠️ Update Recipients on a Scheduled Report 1. In the left sidebar, click Reports to open your report projects. 2. Open the project that contains the affected report. 3. Locate the report and open its email or schedule settings. 4. In the recipients field, delete any address that should not receive the report, especially addresses that are not registered on your account. 5. Type in the correct email address and add any other recipients you want on the list. 6. Confirm the schedule frequency is correct and click Save. 7. Repeat these steps for every scheduled report in the project. Recipient lists are stored per report, so updating one report never updates the others. 👥 Clear a Former Teammate's Email Removing someone from your account removes their access, but it does not remove their email from reports they were added to. If a departed teammate is still receiving your reports: 1. Go to Reports in the left sidebar and open the project. 2. Open each scheduled report's email settings. 3. Delete the former teammate's address from the recipient list. 4. Save the report. If a report keeps sending after a subscription lapsed or an account was deactivated, check that the schedule toggle is switched off and save again. 📨 About the Sender Address Scheduled report emails are delivered from a fixed system sender address on behalf of Search Atlas. This sender address is not configurable and has no effect on where the report is delivered. As long as your own email appears in the recipient list, the report will reach your inbox even though the sender address looks different. 💡 Tips to Avoid Stale Recipients - Review recipient lists whenever someone joins or leaves your team. - After changing your account email, audit every scheduled report and update the recipient list on each one. - When you duplicate a report, the copy keeps the original recipient list, so edit it before the next scheduled send. - Switch the email schedule off on reports you no longer need instead of leaving them active. 🤝 Still Landing in the Wrong Inbox? If you have updated the recipient list and emails still go to the old address, or a report sends weekly with no visible recipients, there may be a cached schedule on our side that needs to be cleared. 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.

Report Builder Date Range, Comparison and Email Options

This article explains a known issue with custom date ranges in Report Builder, which comparison options are available, and how scheduled report emails are configured. Why does my custom date range revert to Last 30 Days? In the Create Report wizard, choosing a custom date range and clicking Apply can silently switch the report back to "Last 30 Days". When this happens, the saved report keeps the "Last 30 Days" setting, so your chosen dates are not stored, and no warning is shown. This is a known issue that our product team has logged and has not yet resolved. What can I do while the issue is open? - After you click Apply, check the date range shown on the report before you save it. - If it shows "Last 30 Days", your custom dates were not kept. - Reach our team through live chat and share the report name, the dates you selected and the range that appears after saving. A screenshot of each helps. What comparison options does Report Builder offer? The comparison selector offers four choices: Previous period, Previous year, Custom date and Don't compare. "Year to Date" is not available as a comparison type. Older comparison presets, such as previous month or the last 3, 6 or 12 months, are shown as Previous period when an older report is opened. How do I schedule report emails? Open the report's Configure Report drawer and go to the Emails tab. There you can choose the Email Frequency, which can be Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly, and add recipient email addresses in the separate recipients list.

🔧 Fix Reports Sent to Wrong Email Address

📋 Overview Automated reports in Search Atlas — including LLM Visibility and citation notification emails — may sometimes continue to be delivered to an outdated or incorrect email address. This can happen when an account email changes, a team member leaves, or a recipient was saved incorrectly during an earlier configuration. Because this issue involves how recipient data is stored on the backend, it typically requires our team to investigate and correct it directly. 🔍 Why Reports Go to the Wrong Email This issue usually happens for one of the following reasons: - A stale email address was saved as a report recipient before your account email was updated. - A previous team member's email was set as the recipient and was never removed. - Automated emails were configured during onboarding and have not been reviewed since. In some cases, the system may continue delivering reports to a stored email address even after changes are made on your end. This type of issue is resolved on the backend by our support team. 🛠️ What to Do If Reports Are Going to the Wrong Address Because recipient data for automated reports is managed at the backend level, the most reliable resolution is to contact our support team directly. To help us resolve this as quickly as possible, please have the following ready when you reach out: - Your project name and the Search Atlas account email address associated with it. - The email address currently receiving the reports (the incorrect or stale one). - The correct email address you want reports to be sent to going forward. - The type of report affected (for example, LLM Visibility reports, citation emails, or scheduled reports). - Any relevant timestamps — such as when you first noticed the issue or when the last incorrectly delivered report was received. Our team will locate the stored recipient data on the backend and update it to the correct address on your behalf. 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.

🔴 Fix Trend Arrows Showing Wrong Direction in Reports

🧭 Overview Trend arrows in your reports are designed to give you a quick visual signal — green with an upward arrow for improvement, red with a downward arrow for decline. If you notice a red or downward arrow next to a metric that is clearly increasing, this is a UI rendering issue, not a data accuracy problem. Your underlying data is correct; the directional indicator is simply displaying the wrong state. This article explains why this happens and walks you through the steps to resolve it. ⚠️ How to Confirm You Have This Issue Before troubleshooting, confirm that what you are experiencing matches this specific issue: - The numeric value of the metric is higher than the previous period (for example, organic traffic increased from 1,200 to 1,450 visits). - The trend arrow next to that number is pointing down or displayed in red. - The contradiction is consistent — it does not resolve itself after a page refresh. If your numbers themselves look wrong or unexpected, that is a separate data accuracy issue and may be related to filters or sync timing. This article specifically addresses cases where the number is correct but the arrow direction or color does not match it. 🔍 Why This Happens Trend arrow direction is calculated by comparing the current period value against a baseline comparison period. The most common reasons for misalignment are: - Comparison period is set incorrectly. If your comparison window is set to a period when the metric was higher than today, the arrow will show red even if the metric has grown recently. For example, comparing this week to a peak month six months ago will always look like a decline. - Metric direction logic is inverted for that KPI. Some metrics are "lower is better" — such as crawl errors, bounce rate, or page load time. If the arrow logic for one of these metrics was applied to a "higher is better" metric, you will see the opposite color. - The report was duplicated or imported with mismatched settings. Cloned or shared reports sometimes carry over comparison period settings from their original configuration, which may not match your current reporting intent. - A rendering glitch after a recent report edit. In some cases, editing a report layout — such as reordering columns or changing date ranges — can cause the trend indicators to render based on stale cached values until the report is fully refreshed. 🛠️ Steps to Fix the Misalignment 1. Open your report. Go to the left sidebar and select Reports, then choose the affected report from your projects list at /report-builder/projects-list. 2. Check the comparison period setting. At the top of the report, locate the date range controls. Confirm that the Compare To period is set to the interval you intend — typically the previous equivalent period (previous week, previous month, or previous year). Adjust it if it is pointing to an unintended timeframe. 3. Verify the metric type. Review whether the metric showing the incorrect arrow is one where a decrease is considered positive (such as bounce rate, error count, or load time). If so, the arrow direction may be correct by design. If the metric should treat an increase as positive, proceed to the next step. 4. Force a full report refresh. Click the Refresh Summary button within the report view (Executive Summary). Do not rely solely on a browser page reload, as this may serve a cached version of the rendered indicators. 5. Re-save the report. If the arrow remains incorrect after refreshing, make a minor edit — such as toggling a display option on and off — then save the report. This forces the rendering engine to recalculate all visual indicators from the current data. 6. Rebuild the affected widget. If the issue persists on a specific metric widget, remove that widget from the report and re-add it from scratch using the widget library. Reconfigure the metric and comparison period. This clears any corrupted display state tied to the original widget instance. ✅ Confirming the Fix After completing the steps above, the trend arrow should align with the metric value. A green upward arrow should appear next to any metric that has increased relative to the selected comparison period, and a red downward arrow should only appear when the metric has genuinely declined. If the arrows are now consistent with the numbers, no further action is needed. 🚫 What This Issue Is Not To avoid confusion, here is a quick distinction between this issue and other common report problems: - This is not a data sync issue. If your numbers themselves are missing, outdated, or appear lower than expected, that may be related to API sync delays or active filters — which require separate troubleshooting. - This is not a permissions issue. All users with access to a report see the same rendered indicators. - This is not caused by ad blockers or browser extensions in the vast majority of cases, though clearing your browser cache is always a safe first step if behavior seems erratic. 💬 Still Seeing the Wrong Arrow Direction? If you have followed all the steps above and the trend arrow direction still does not match the metric value, the issue may require a manual review of your report configuration by our team. 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 Score and Traffic Drop: No Site Changes

🔍 What This Article Covers If your site score dropped sharply — for example, from the low 90s to the 40s — and your reported visitor numbers declined at the same time, without any changes made to your website, this guide explains what may be happening and the exact steps to take. A simultaneous drop across multiple metrics with no site changes is a specific scenario. It is different from gradual performance decline and should be treated as a potential reporting or data sync issue, not just normal fluctuation. ⚠️ Why This Pattern Matters When only one metric drops, the cause is often straightforward — a new technical issue detected, a ranking shift, or a crawl update. However, when your site score and visitor data both drop sharply at the same time and you have made no changes to your site, this correlation may suggest a data or reporting discrepancy between Search Atlas and Google Search Console. This type of issue is worth escalating to our support team for investigation. 🧭 What to Check Before Reaching Out Before contacting support, gather the following information so our team can investigate quickly. 1. Locate your site score within Search Atlas and note the current value and the approximate date the drop appears to have started. 2. Take a screenshot or record the exact score values shown — both the current reading and any historical data visible in the chart. 3. Check whether your keyword rankings also show a sudden change around the same date. 4. Open Google Search Console directly and compare your GSC traffic data for the same date range. Note whether the drop in Search Atlas matches or contradicts what GSC shows. 5. Check whether your GSC connection in Search Atlas is still active. If it appears to have lapsed, reconnect your Google Search Console account through Site Metrics → Site Explorer → Manage Sites/Connect GSC Account (GSC Accounts page). 📊 Comparing Search Atlas Data With GSC Search Atlas pulls visitor and impression data from your connected Google Search Console account. A discrepancy between the two platforms can occur when the GSC connection has lapsed or when there is a data sync issue on the platform side affecting how your property's data is displayed. If your GSC data and Search Atlas data do not match, note the specific date range and metric values for both platforms and share these with our support team so they can investigate further. 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.

📊 Fix Report Customization and Data Discrepancies

📋 Overview Search Atlas reports let you tailor what data you share with clients or stakeholders. If your report shows numbers that differ from Google Search Console (GSC), or you need to remove specific sections, this article walks you through both tasks step by step. 🗂️ How to Access the Report Builder Navigate to the Report Builder by selecting Reports from the left sidebar. Here you will see all existing reports tied to your projects. ✂️ How to Remove Sections from a Report 1. Open the Reports page from the left sidebar. 2. Click the report you want to edit to open it in the builder. 3. Locate the section you want to remove and look for the options control associated with that section. 4. Select the option to remove or delete that section to hide that block from the report. 5. Preview the report to confirm the section no longer appears, then save your changes. Tip: Removing a section only affects the report layout — it does not delete the underlying data from your project. ⚠️ Why Report Numbers May Not Match Google Search Console Seeing different numbers between Search Atlas and GSC is a common concern. The most frequent reasons are listed below. - Date range offset: GSC may apply a data freshness delay. Make sure the date range selected in Search Atlas matches exactly what you are viewing in GSC. - Property type mismatch: GSC distinguishes between Domain properties and URL-prefix properties. Confirm that the property connected to Search Atlas is the same type and URL you are checking in GSC. - Data sampling: GSC may apply sampling to large data sets. Search Atlas may surface a slightly different sample depending on when data was pulled. - Filters applied in GSC: If you have active filters in GSC (e.g., country, device, or search type), the totals will differ from an unfiltered Search Atlas view. Remove filters in both tools before comparing. - Metric definition differences: Impressions, clicks, and CTR can be counted differently depending on the GSC report view you are using. Verify you are comparing equivalent metrics. - Connection or sync timing: If your GSC account was connected recently, historical data may still be importing. Allow some time after connecting for a full data sync before drawing comparisons. 🔌 How to Verify Your Google Search Console Connection 1. Go to Site Metrics → GSC Performance (Manage Sites) from the left sidebar. 2. Confirm that the correct GSC property is connected and actively syncing data. 3. If the property does not appear or shows an error, disconnect and reconnect your GSC account. 4. After reconnecting, allow time for data to fully import before comparing numbers again. 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 Create Client Reports with OTTO SEO Data

This article explains how to create client reports that include data from your OTTO SEO projects using the Report Builder. If you've been unsure how to pull OTTO SEO information into a shareable report — or how to confirm the report is set up correctly — this guide covers each step in detail. 📍 Where to Find It Navigate to Left sidebar → Reports to open the Report Builder. From here you can create new reports, refresh summary, download a CSV, and configure automated email delivery to clients. 🛠️ Step-by-Step 1. In the left sidebar, click Reports to open the Report Builder project list. 2. Click + Create to start a new report. 3. When prompted to select a project or data source, choose the client project that has OTTO SEO enabled. OTTO SEO data is tied to the project it was activated on, so make sure you select the correct project from the list. 4. Configure the report sections you want to include — such as site audit results, keyword rankings, or on-page optimizations that OTTO SEO has applied or recommended. 5. Add your client's branding or any custom notes as needed, then save the report. 6. To share the report automatically, use the Automated email reports option to schedule recurring delivery directly to your client's inbox. 7. To provide an immediate download, use Download .CSV to export the current data snapshot. ✅ How to Confirm It Worked After creating the report, verify the following to confirm everything is set up correctly: - The report appears in your Report Builder project list under Left sidebar → Reports. - Opening the report shows data sections populated with information from your selected OTTO SEO project — not blank or placeholder fields. - If you scheduled an automated email, confirm the delivery settings show the correct recipient email address, frequency, and next send date. - If you downloaded a CSV, open the file and check that the rows contain real metric values (rankings, audit scores, etc.) rather than empty columns, which would indicate the wrong project was selected. 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 Use the Refresh Summary button (Left sidebar → Reports → [Report] (Executive Summary) → Refresh Summary) to ensure the report is pulling the most current OTTO SEO data before previewing or sharing. Also confirms the URL path /report-builder/projects-list and advises verifying the project name matches the OTTO SEO deployment before proceeding.

🎓 Fix a Zero Factuality Score in Scholar

🔍 Overview If your Scholar grader is showing a factuality score of 0, this article explains what may be happening and what information to have ready when contacting support. Because this issue requires investigation on the backend, the most effective next step is to reach out to our support team directly. 🤔 What Does a Zero Factuality Score Mean? A factuality score of 0 typically indicates that Scholar was unable to complete the grading process for that content. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as the content not being processed correctly or a temporary issue with the grading pipeline. Our support team can investigate the specific cause directly on your account. 🛠️ Before Contacting Support — Steps to Try First 1. Reload the page and reopen the Scholar report to check whether the score updates. 2. Run the Scholar grader again on the same content to see if the zero score persists on a fresh run. 3. Check whether the zero factuality score affects only one report or multiple reports in your account, as this helps identify whether the issue is isolated or broader. 4. Confirm that the content you submitted is not empty and meets the minimum length requirements for Scholar analysis. 📋 What to Have Ready When You Contact Support If the zero score persists after trying the steps above, please have the following ready when you reach out: - The project name or URL of the Scholar report showing the zero score. - The exact scores displayed (e.g. Factuality: 0). - Whether the issue affects one report or multiple reports. - The date and approximate time you first noticed the issue. - Any steps you have already tried, including whether re-running the grader made any difference. 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.

🔍 Diagnose Unexpected Geo-Targeted Traffic Spikes

🌐 Why Am I Seeing Traffic From China or Singapore? If your UK-targeted websites are suddenly showing traffic spikes from countries like China or Singapore, there are two likely explanations: bot or crawler activity, or a misconfiguration in your geo-targeting settings. This article walks you through how to diagnose the cause and take corrective action. 🤖 Step 1 — Determine Whether the Traffic Is from Bots Unexpected international traffic spikes are most commonly caused by automated bots, web scrapers, or data centre crawlers rather than real users. Look for these warning signs in your analytics platform: - Bounce rate is unusually high (above 90%) for the suspicious traffic segment - Session duration is near zero — bots rarely spend time on pages - Pages per session is exactly 1 across a large volume of visits - No conversions or goal completions from the traffic source - Traffic arrives in short, concentrated bursts rather than a gradual increase If several of these signs are present at the same time, bot activity is the most likely cause. Real organic growth from a new region is typically gradual and shows meaningful engagement metrics. ⚙️ Step 2 — Verify Your Geo-Targeting Configuration Even when bot traffic is the primary cause, it is worth confirming that your geo-targeting settings are correctly configured. A misconfiguration could amplify the problem or mask its true source. Check each of the following: 1. Google Search Console — International Targeting: Go to Search Console → Legacy Tools → International Targeting. Confirm the target country is set to United Kingdom for each of your four sites. If it is set to Unlisted or the wrong country, correct it immediately. 2. Hreflang tags: If your sites serve multiple language variants, verify that hreflang="en-gb" tags are present and correctly implemented in your page source or sitemap. Incorrect or missing hreflang can cause search engines to serve your pages to unintended audiences. 3. Server or CDN location: Confirm your hosting or CDN is not automatically routing traffic through international nodes that could confuse geo-detection. 4. Analytics filters: Check whether any existing IP exclusion or geo filters in your analytics account have been accidentally removed or changed. 📊 Step 3 — Investigate in Search Atlas Site Explorer Use Search Atlas to cross-reference whether the traffic spike corresponds to any real keyword ranking changes in those regions. This helps confirm whether the visits are organic or artificial. 1. In the left sidebar, navigate to Site Metrics (Site Explorer). 2. Enter your website URL and review the organic traffic data by region and keyword. 3. Go to Keywords → Rank Tracker and check whether any keywords are ranking in Chinese or Singaporean search results. If your keywords are purely UK-focused and show no international rankings, this strongly suggests the traffic is not organic. 4. Go to Keywords → Keyword Gap to compare your site against competitors and confirm whether international visibility has genuinely expanded or whether your domestic rankings remain unchanged. If Site Explorer shows no corresponding keyword rankings or visibility in China or Singapore, the traffic spike is almost certainly non-organic. 🛠️ Step 4 — Filter and Block Bot Traffic Once you have confirmed the traffic is from bots or crawlers, take the following steps to filter it from your data and reduce its impact: - In Google Analytics 4: Create an audience filter to exclude traffic from the relevant countries (China, Singapore) if you have no legitimate audience there. Navigate to Admin → Data Streams → Configure Tag Settings → Define Internal Traffic, or use Reporting Identity filters. - In Google Analytics 4 (Bot filtering): Go to Admin → Data Settings → Data Filters and enable the Bot and spider filtering option if it is not already active. - At the server or firewall level: Work with your hosting provider or IT team to block known data centre IP ranges associated with scraping activity using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) such as Cloudflare. - robots.txt: Ensure your robots.txt file is correctly configured. While it will not stop malicious bots, it signals legitimate crawlers and helps identify bad actors that ignore the file. 💡 Step 5 — Monitor Going Forward After applying filters and verifying your settings, monitor your traffic over the next 7 to 14 days. Watch for: - A return to your normal UK-centric traffic baseline - Any further spikes that may indicate persistent crawler activity - Changes in your UK keyword rankings, which should remain unaffected by bot traffic alone Set up custom alerts in your analytics platform to notify you if traffic from specific countries exceeds a defined threshold. This allows you to catch future spikes early and investigate before the data skews your reporting. 💬 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 Metrics Domain vs Page-Level Reporting Explained

Why Site Metrics Shows Domain-Level Data Only Site Metrics is designed to report aggregated, domain-level SEO data — it summarises the overall performance of your entire website as a single entity. This means the metrics you see reflect your whole domain, not individual pages. This is expected behaviour. Even after a successful crawl of your site, Site Metrics will not break down performance on a per-URL basis. It is not a limitation of the crawl — it is simply how Site Metrics is built to function. What Site Metrics Does and Does Not Show - Does show: Aggregated, domain-level SEO metrics for your whole site. - Does not show: Individual URL performance, page-by-page data, or per-page breakdowns within the Site Metrics overview screen. Where to Find Page-Level Performance Data To analyse individual URLs across your site, you need to use tools that are built for page-level analysis. Search Atlas includes dedicated tools for this purpose — please refer to the in-platform documentation or tooltips within each tool to confirm exactly what each one reports. As a general guide: 1. Site Auditor: Your primary destination for page-by-page crawl data, including on-page SEO issues and technical signals at the individual URL level. 2. Rank Tracker: Allows you to monitor ranking performance for specific keywords and URLs over time. 3. Keyword Magic: Use this for keyword research relevant to specific pages and URLs. 4. Keyword Gap: Helps compare keyword coverage between your domain and competitors to identify content opportunities. 5. OTTO SEO: Supports creation and optimisation of individual pages with AI-driven recommendations. Quick Reference: Which Tool to Use - Overall domain-level SEO data? → Site Metrics overview - Crawl results and on-page issues per URL? → Site Auditor - Keyword rankings for specific pages? → Rank Tracker - Keyword research for individual URLs? → Keyword Magic - Content gap opportunities vs competitors? → Keyword Gap - AI-assisted page creation and optimisation? → OTTO SEO If you are unsure which tool to open for your specific use case, explore the main navigation menu in the platform to locate each of these tools. When contacting support about a page-level data issue, please have ready: the specific URL(s) you are investigating, the project or domain name in your account, and a description of what data you expected to see versus what was displayed. 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.

📊 Fix a Blank Portfolio Summary

📋 What the portfolio summary shows The portfolio summary in Report Builder provides an overview of reports and project data. It may appear blank while information is loading, when no eligible project data is available, or if the summary has not refreshed correctly. 🔄 Refresh the report data 1. Open Reports from the left sidebar. 2. Select your report (Executive Summary). 3. Select Refresh Summary. 4. Wait for the refresh to finish, then reopen the portfolio summary. Some summaries can take several seconds to load. Keep the page open during this process and avoid refreshing repeatedly. ✅ Check your report and project data - Confirm that the correct projects are included in the report. - Check that the selected date range contains data. - Review any filters that could exclude projects or reports. - Open All Reports to confirm that reports are available. If the summary shows zero reports while a report list contains reports, the summary may be temporarily out of sync. Refresh the data and check again after a short wait. 🛠️ If the summary remains blank 1. Navigate away from Reports, then return to Reports and select your report (Executive Summary). 2. Use Refresh Summary again. 3. Verify that your projects and reports still appear under All Reports. 4. Record the affected portfolio, project names, date range, and approximate time of the issue. If the report list also fails to load after these steps, the issue may be temporary or account-specific. 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.

🔍 Troubleshooting Report Quality and Accuracy Issues

🧭 Overview If a generated report contains unexpected data, missing metrics, or results that don't match your expectations, this guide will help you identify the root cause and take corrective action. Working through these steps systematically will resolve the majority of report quality issues. 🗂️ How to Access Your Reports Navigate to Left sidebar → Reports or go directly to /report-builder/projects-list. From here you can open, edit, regenerate, or review any existing report. ⚠️ Common Causes of Report Quality Issues - Incorrect date range selected: The report pulled data from the wrong time period, causing metrics to appear off or incomplete. - Wrong project or domain configured: The report is pulling data for a different property than intended. - Filters applied unintentionally: Active keyword, location, or device filters may be excluding data you expect to see. - Data source not yet indexed: New projects or recently added keywords may not have enough historical data to populate all metrics. - Cached or stale data: The report may have been generated before the latest crawl or ranking update completed. - Metric misalignment: The report template includes metrics that don't apply to the selected project type or subscription tier. - Template misconfiguration: Sections, widgets, or branding elements were not set up correctly before generation. 🔎 Step-by-Step Diagnosis 1. Open the report in question. Go to Left sidebar → Reports, locate the report, and open it for review. 2. Check the date range. Confirm the date range shown in the report matches the period you intended to cover. Adjust and regenerate if needed. 3. Verify the linked project and domain. Inside the report settings, confirm the correct project and domain are selected. A mismatch here is one of the most common causes of inaccurate data. 4. Review active filters. Check for any keyword, location, device, or tag filters that may be narrowing the data. Remove unintended filters and regenerate the report. 5. Compare data against the live dashboard. Open the corresponding project dashboard and compare key metrics directly against what appears in the report. If the dashboard matches your expectations but the report does not, the issue is in the report configuration, not the underlying data. 6. Check when the report was last generated. If the report was generated before a recent crawl or ranking refresh completed, regenerate it to pull the latest data. 7. Inspect the template settings. Open the template used for this report and confirm all sections and widgets are correctly configured for the project type. Remove or replace any widgets that are not applicable. 8. Regenerate the report. After correcting any configuration issues, regenerate the report and review the output before sending it to your client. ✅ Data Validation Checklist Before sending any report to a client, run through the following checks: - Date range is correct and clearly labeled. - Domain and project name match the client's property. - All key metrics are populated and not showing as zero or blank. - No unintended filters are active. - Branding, logo, and client name are accurate. - Metrics align with the client's goals and the report template purpose. - The report was generated after the most recent data refresh. 🛠️ When to Regenerate vs. Reconfigure Regenerate the report when the configuration looks correct but the data appears stale or incomplete. This forces the system to pull the most current data available. Reconfigure the report when the date range, project, domain, filters, or template settings are incorrect. Always regenerate after making configuration changes. 📋 Information to Gather Before Contacting Support If the steps above do not resolve the issue, collecting the following information in advance will allow our team to investigate efficiently without needing to follow up multiple times: - The name and URL of the affected report. - The project and domain the report is linked to. - The date range the report was configured to cover. - A description of what the report shows versus what you expected to see. - Screenshots or a screen recording highlighting the specific discrepancy. - Whether the live dashboard for the same project shows correct data. - The date and time the report was originally generated. 💬 Contact Support 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.

🔍 URL Pattern Exclusion and Subdomain Handling Explained

🗺️ Overview Search Atlas gives you control over which URLs appear in your dashboards and reports. You can manually exclude specific URL patterns, and certain subdomains are handled automatically by the platform. This article explains both features so your data stays clean and relevant. 🚫 Excluding Specific URL Patterns If you want to remove certain URLs or page types from your Search Atlas dashboards and reports, you can set up URL pattern exclusions. Common use cases include excluding thank-you pages, admin paths, staging directories, or any URLs that should not factor into your SEO analysis. To exclude URL patterns from your reports, follow these steps: 1. Log in to your Search Atlas account and navigate to the relevant project or dashboard. 2. Open the Settings for that project. 3. Locate the URL Exclusions or Filtered URLs section. 4. Enter the URL pattern you want to exclude. You can use partial strings (for example, /thank-you/ or /staging/) to match multiple URLs at once. 5. Save your changes. The exclusion will apply to new data refreshes going forward. Note: URL exclusions affect how data is displayed in your dashboards. They do not prevent Search Atlas crawlers from visiting those URLs — they only filter the URLs out of your reports and metrics. 🌐 How Subdomains Are Handled Search Atlas treats subdomains as separate entities from the root domain by default. This means blog.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com are tracked independently unless you configure them to be grouped together. Here is what you need to know about subdomain behaviour: - Automatic separation: Each subdomain you add as a project is tracked on its own. Metrics such as keyword rankings, backlinks, and site health scores are not combined with the root domain automatically. - Search Atlas platform subdomains: Internal Search Atlas subdomains (for example, tool pages and application subdomains on searchatlas.com) are excluded from toolbar overlays and reporting features to avoid interference with your workflow. - Robots.txt and crawlability: If you manage subdomain sites, make sure your robots.txt file is correctly configured. Misconfigured robots.txt files on subdomains can allow unintended crawling by search engines, which may affect your SEO data. Search Atlas surfaces crawl issues like this in your Site Audit reports. - www vs. non-www: Search Atlas recognises www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com as different URLs. When connecting your site, use the version that matches your canonical domain consistently to avoid data discrepancies. ⚙️ Grouping Subdomains Under One Project If you want to view a root domain and its subdomains together in a single project, you can add multiple properties to one project using the Add Property option within your project settings. This lets you monitor combined traffic and performance without losing the ability to filter by individual subdomain when needed. 🛠️ Troubleshooting Common Issues Use the guidance below if you run into problems related to URL exclusions or subdomain handling: - Excluded URLs still appearing in reports: Exclusions apply to new data after you save them. Historical data already in your dashboard may still show the excluded URLs until the next data refresh cycle. - Subdomain data not showing up: Confirm the subdomain has been added as a tracked property in your project. Also verify that the subdomain is accessible and not blocked by robots.txt or a login wall. - www subdomain causing connection errors: If you experience issues connecting your site when your URL includes www, ensure the URL entered in Search Atlas exactly matches your WordPress or CMS home URL setting, including the www prefix. - Toolbar appearing on unintended pages: The Search Atlas SEO Toolbar is designed to exclude platform pages automatically. If the toolbar appears somewhere unexpected, refreshing the page or clearing your browser cache usually resolves this. 💡 Best Practices - Decide on a consistent URL format (www or non-www, HTTP or HTTPS) before setting up your project to prevent duplicate tracking. - Review your URL exclusion list periodically to make sure it reflects your current site structure. - Use the Site Audit tool to check for robots.txt issues on all subdomains you manage. - When in doubt about whether a subdomain should be a separate project or grouped with the root domain, consider your reporting goals — separate projects give more granular data, while grouped properties give a combined view. 🙋 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.

📊 Fix and Improve Your Report Quality

🔍 Why Report Quality Matters Sending an inaccurate or incomplete report to a client can damage trust and raise questions about your SEO process. Report quality issues in Search Atlas most commonly fall into a few categories — and many can be addressed by reviewing your project settings, data connections, and report configuration before escalating to support. 🔎 Step 1: Identify the Type of Issue Before making changes, pinpoint exactly what is wrong with the report. Common issues include: - Outdated data — metrics reflect an old crawl or keyword snapshot - Missing sections — certain modules were not included or saved correctly - Incorrect domain or project — the report was built against the wrong project - Inaccurate keyword rankings — rankings shown do not match expected results - Branding or formatting errors — logo, colors, or client name are incorrect 🔄 Step 2: Check Your Data Connections and Refresh Status If the data appears stale or missing, review the following before regenerating the report: - Confirm that the correct project and domain are associated with the report you are reviewing. - Check whether any third-party integrations (such as Google Search Console) are properly connected within your project settings. Disconnected integrations can result in blank or zero-value data. - If data appears outdated, initiate a new crawl or ranking refresh from within the relevant tool in your project, then wait for it to complete before reviewing the report again. - Verify that the target location settings for keyword tracking match what was agreed with your client, as rankings are location-specific. 🛠️ Step 3: Review Each Report Section Work through the report section by section to confirm accuracy: - Keyword Rankings: Confirm the tracked keywords and target location are correct. An incorrect geo setting will produce misleading ranking data. - Site Audit Data: Verify the crawl was run against the correct domain and completed without errors. - Backlink Data: Check that the domain is entered correctly — a subdomain versus root domain difference can significantly affect link counts. - Traffic Data: Confirm any required integrations are active and connected in your project settings. - Branding: Review your agency logo, colors, and client name in the report settings before resending. ✏️ Step 4: Correct and Resend the Report Once you have identified the issue, make the necessary corrections within the report and save your changes. Review the updated report in full before resending it to your client. 📋 Before Contacting Support If you are unable to resolve the issue after completing the steps above, please have the following ready when you reach out: - The name of the project and domain the report is associated with - A description of exactly what data appears incorrect or missing - Any error messages you have seen, including the exact wording - The date and time you first noticed the issue 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.

🛠️ Fix Quota Exhausted Errors in Iframed Reports

🔍 Overview Some users have encountered a quota exhausted error displayed inside iframed white-label reports — both Classic and New versions — while the same report viewed directly via its live URL works without issue. This article explains what caused the problem and what to do if you see it. ⚙️ What Caused This Issue This error was caused by a missing internal quota record on the server side. Even though your account had valid quota allocations in the database, a required background data object was absent, which caused iframed versions of reports to incorrectly display a quota exhausted message. This was a platform-level bug, not a problem with your account settings or report configuration. ✅ Current Status A fix for this issue has been deployed to production. If you encountered this error previously, it should now be resolved. Follow the steps below to confirm everything is working correctly. 🖥️ Steps to Verify Your Reports Are Working 1. Log in to your Search Atlas account. 2. Navigate to your Reports section to access your report projects. 3. Open the report that was previously showing the error and copy its iframe or share URL. 4. Load the iframed version of the report in a browser tab or within your white-label environment. 5. Interact with the report — apply filters, switch sections, or scroll — to confirm no quota exhausted message appears. 6. Repeat this check for both Classic and New report versions if you use both. 🚨 If the Error Is Still Appearing If you complete the steps above and the quota exhausted error is still visible in your iframed reports, the issue may need to be reviewed individually for your account. Before reaching out, gather the following details to help the team investigate quickly: - The specific report URL and the iframe embed URL where the error appears - Whether the error appears in Classic reports, New reports, or both - A screenshot of the error message if possible - Confirmation that the live (non-iframed) URL loads correctly 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.

🔍 Investigate Report Builder Data Differences

📊 Why data may differ Report Builder combines data from integrations such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Meta Ads, and Keyword Explorer. Differences can occur because each source may use different date ranges, filters, query logic, attribution rules, or data refresh times. 🗓️ Check the date range 1. Open Reports from the left sidebar. 2. Open the report and review its date preset and comparison period. 3. Use the same dates in the connected platform or dedicated Search Atlas dashboard. 4. Check whether the report uses your account time zone while the source platform uses another time zone. Preset names can represent different date windows across tools. Compare the exact start and end dates instead of relying only on labels such as “last 7 days.” 🎯 Compare filters and query settings Review filters for properties such as campaign, page, country, device, search type, query, or conversion. A direct platform view may include or exclude records differently from Report Builder. For keyword data, confirm the project, search engine, location, language, device, and ranking settings match. 🔗 Verify the integration 1. Confirm the report uses the intended account, property, website, or ad account. 2. Check that the integration is connected and has permission to access the required data. 3. Confirm the selected project and source match the dashboard you are using for comparison. 4. Consider whether the source has recently changed, delayed, or backfilled data. 🔄 Refresh and download the report From Reports, select Refresh data and allow the report to reload. Then use Download .CSV to inspect the underlying rows. Compare totals and individual records where possible, rather than comparing only a displayed summary. 🧭 Check related dashboards For SEO automation data, open OTTO SEO from the left sidebar and compare the project and scan status. For AI Visibility metrics, use AI Visibility → All Projects, Summary, Visibility, Sentiment, or Topics & Queries. These pages may use different scopes or processing schedules than a report. 📝 Prepare an investigation If the difference remains, record the report name, source integration, exact date range, time zone, filters, project or account, metric name, expected value, actual value, and the time you refreshed the data. Include a CSV export and screenshots showing the matching comparison view. This information helps identify date-window, query, or integration-specific issues. 💬 Get help with unresolved differences Some discrepancies may result from known limitations or bugs affecting date presets, query logic, or integration filtering. If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be instantly connected with a member of our team.