Get started with Microsoft Search in SharePoint

Microsoft Search in SharePoint is the modern search experience in SharePoint Online. SharePoint Online also offers a classic search experience. As a search administrator, you can’t turn either of these search experiences on or off. They're both on by default. Which search experience your users get depends on where they search from:

  • Users get the Microsoft Search box on the SharePoint start page, hub sites, communication sites, and modern team sites.
  • Users get the classic search box on publishing sites, classic team sites, and in the SharePoint Search Center.

To get your organization going with Microsoft Search in SharePoint, take the steps in the following sections.

Prepare for Microsoft Search in SharePoint

Users can only find SharePoint content that's been indexed. Microsoft Search and classic search share the same index for SharePoint content, which is crawled and indexed automatically.

Some organizations use both classic search and Microsoft Search in SharePoint. To learn how to avoid impact from classic search settings on Microsoft Search in SharePoint, see Differences between the classic and modern search experiences in SharePoint Online.

Follow the guidelines to set up Microsoft Search.

Get your organization to adopt modern sites

For a better search experience, influence your organization to try modern instead of classic sites. To learn more, see SharePoint classic and modern experiences.

Promote searching from the SharePoint start page

Teach your users to search from the SharePoint start page instead of from the classic Search Center. Consider hiding your classic Search Center from users.

See also

Overview of Microsoft Search

Overview of search in SharePoint Online

Search experiences in SharePoint