Search results missing in SharePoint Online

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    SharePoint Online

Problem

When a user tries to search a site in SharePoint Online, items may be missing from the search results. For example, the following items may be missing:

  • Content
  • Pages
  • ASPX pages

This issue may occur even though the site was crawled and indexed by the Search service, and the user has permissions to access the resource by using a search query.

Cause

There are various reasons why expected results may be missing that are related to crawl latency or settings in SharePoint Online.

Solution

  1. Make sure that Allow this site to appear in Search results is set to Yes.

    1. As an admin, locate the site that's missing results.

    2. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner.

    3. Select Site Settings.

    4. Under Search, select Search and offline availability.

    5. Make sure that Allow this site to appear in Search results is set to Yes.

      After the setting is set to Yes, the site should be indexed during the next scheduled crawl.

      Note

      From the same location, admins can also select Reindex Site to enable the site to be picked up during the next scheduled search crawl.

      See the More Information section for a detailed explanation and walk-through of site-level search configuration settings.

  2. Make sure that Allow items from this document library to appear in search results? is set to Yes.

    1. As an admin, locate the library that's missing from search results.

    2. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner.

    3. Select Library Settings.

    4. Select Advanced Settings.

    5. Make sure that Allow items from this document library to appear in search results? is set to Yes.

      After the setting is set to Yes, the library should be indexed during the next scheduled crawl.

      Note

      From the same location, admins can also select Reindex Document Library to make sure that all content in the document library is indexed during the next scheduled crawl.

  3. Verify draft items are crawled, see Draft items are not crawled in SharePoint.

  4. Verify the site's search visibility options at the following location:

    <site_name>/_layouts/srchvis.aspx

    Make sure that the Allow this site to appear in Search results option is selected.

Parent site and sub site-specific search issues

The default setting for search visibility is one of the following options:

  • Do not index Web Parts if this site contains fine-grained permissions
  • Always index all Web Parts on this site
  • Never index any Web Parts on this site

If a subsite on the site collection doesn't inherit permissions, .aspx pages won't appear in the search results. To resolve this issue, set the search visibility option in Srchvis.aspx to Always index all Web Parts on this site. Additionally, you may set the subsite to inherit permissions from the parent site.

More information

For more information about search, see the following Microsoft webpages:

Still need help? Go to SharePoint Community.