This article will equip the user with removing result / index from SharePoint 2010 search results through two simple approaches; Search Result Removal option and Crawl Log option.
We all would agree that search plays an integral part of any SharePoint deployment and at times this boon becomes a bane when seeing a result that is sensitive in nature. Before we start with the nitty-gritty on removing a result from search results, let’s get a bird’s eye view on what SharePoint 2010 search constitutes.
SharePoint server search is essentially a service application in SharePoint 2010 that is made of Crawler, Indexing Engine, Query Engine and Query Object Model. Delving deep on the listed 4 terms is out-of-scope for this document, shall cover the same in the coming series. To remove a result, the Search Server Application Administrator will specify the content URL that needs to be excluded from being displayed in search results. After an administrator removes, the system removes the URL from the content index and creates a rule that excludes the URL from future crawls, and this is done automatically.
In this article, two approaches will be listed;
· Search Result Removal option
· Crawl Log option
To remove result from search result, we’ll have to start with Search Service Application, which can be navigated from Manage Service Application screen.
I shall cover Create New Search Service Application in the next article. Assuming Search Service Application is available, click on Search Service Application.
Search Result Removal option
In Search Service Application page, on the Quick Launch, in the Queries and Results, click on Search Result Removal.
In Remove URLs From Search Results, insert the content URL in the URLs to remove box. On click of Remove Now, the entered content URL will be removed from the content index and this removal will reflected after the next crawl.
Please be aware that the URL that is entered in Remove Now should be in lowercase. If there are any uppercase letters in the URL, there could be unexpected results that includes failure to create crawl rules or removal of search result URLs without any error message displayed
Crawl Log option
Removing results from search results can be achieved through Crawl Log in Crawling section of Search Service Application page.
In Crawl Log page, click on URL
Now in the URL page, select the URL that needs to be removed from the search result, and in the menu click Remove the item from the index
The selected URL is removed immediately from the content index, and a text is appended to the URL for a new Crawl Rule that is created. The text would be Removed from the search index by Admin. This item will be excluded from future crawls
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