Overview
All Inside U of I sites are hosted in SharePoint Online and the search indexing is handled by the Microsoft Search service which continuously indexes modified content.
All Inside U of I sites are associated with a master "hub site". When selecting the search option at the top of a site, the search scope will be limited to Inside U of I sites only, not the entire organization.
- In the search output, the "All" tab is displayed by default.
- Click on "Sites" to view specific Inside U of I sites which match the search criteria.
- Click on the "Organization" bread crumb to use the same search criteria across all organization sites, including Teams sites.
The "Organization" search includes all SharePoint sites, Power BI, Viva Engage and all public pages on the www.uidaho.edu main web site.
From the SharePoint top bar search results click on the "Organization" bread crumb.
The search results will automatically include results for your original search term across all sources. To limit the source to "www.uidaho.edu" content only, select "www.uidaho.edu" from the "All sources" drop down menu.
Example search results for "password" from the www.uidaho.edu source.
This is additional information about the search indexing provided by the Microsoft Search service. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2201055/sharepoint-index-and-crawling-timeframes
How long does SharePoint usually take to crawl and index the sites?
- Continuous Crawling: SharePoint Online uses a continuous crawl model instead of scheduled full crawls. Once content is uploaded (or updated), the crawler works in the background to pick up changes.
- Gradual Indexing: You may notice that some items appear in search results almost immediately, but the index “catches up” over time. In large environments, it’s common for search results to improve incrementally as more items are processed.
Is there a schedule or frequency for the crawling and indexing of the sites?
- No, Fixed Schedule (Continuous Process): SharePoint Online continuously monitors and indexes content changes. There isn’t a fixed “crawl every X hours” schedule. Instead, changes, including new documents and modifications, are picked up continuously by the Microsoft Search service.
- Incremental Updates: The search index is updated incrementally. This means that when new content is added, or existing content is changed, those changes are gradually reflected in the search index without manual intervention.
Can we expect that the search results will improve as the crawling and indexing progresses?
- Improved Relevance Over Time: Yes. Initially, after an update, search results may be incomplete, or not as accurate, because not all items have been indexed yet. As the continuous crawl processes items, search queries will gradually return more comprehensive and relevant results.
- Consistent Experience: Once the entire site collection is fully indexed, users should see search results that accurately reflect the migrated content, including support for metadata-based refiners and other query enhancements.
Is it a good idea to re-crawl and re-index all the sites?
- Avoid Forcing a Full Crawl: In SharePoint Online, you cannot manually trigger a full crawl. Although you can re-index individual lists or libraries by using the “Reindex Library” or “Reindex Site” options in settings, doing this for all sites or for millions of items is generally not recommended.
- Potential Impact: Manually triggering re-indexing on a large number of items may overload the service and cause performance issues. The recommended approach is to let the continuous crawl process run naturally.
- Best Practice: If you suspect certain libraries or sites have not been indexed properly (for example, if you see that search results are not improving after several days), you can manually trigger re-indexing for those specific libraries or sites via their settings. For example, go to Library Settings > Advanced Settings and click Reindex Library.
- Inside U of I sites: The ability to force a site reindex is not available for Inside U of I sites. If you notice search issues please report the issue.