SharePoint Search: Exclude lists and listitems from search results

Question

Hi,

I'm very new to the MOSS 2007 search and just started playing around with the configuration. At the moment the index contains nearly everything a site has to offer.

After testing the search on my publishing portal I realized that many of the search results are not very useful for the users. E.g. the search results include entries to the explorer view of lists and libraries or lists and libraries and their items which shouldn't appear in the results at all like pictures and grafics which are used for page design.

I know that I could select the content which will be added to the index by defining crawl rules so certain items can be included or excluded.

What I want to archive is to exclude all list and list items from the search results regardless where they are located within a publishing site or within one of its sub websites. In a second step I want to include only certain lists and libraries into the index.

Unfortunately I haven't found any adequate rules to realize that in a smart way without enumerating every single list or library I want to exclude. So how does a rule have to look like to match every list, library and item.

Perhaps some MOSS 2007 search experts can give me some tips or links where I can find some more information on that problem.

Bye Flo

Answer 1

You want to create Search Scopes. You can create them globally though the Shared Service Provider configuration or at the Site Collection level through Site Settings.

Check out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb428856.aspx

Answer 2

Create search scopes using ContentType and ContentClass to limit the results to what you desire.

E.g. http://blog.3i-solutions.nl/2008/01/creating-search-scopes-based-on.html

Be warned that for search scopes using ContentType, pages that are set to be the "Welcome Page" for the site lose their content type for the search index and are classed as having a content class of a web site.

Answer 3

Tank you so far for your answers and links. I'm sure they'll help me solving the second part of my problem, allowing only to search certain lists. But when I understand these search scope concept right, I still need a way to exclude all lists and libraries form the index except libraries that store .aspx pages. After that I could define search scope for certain lists I want do be searchable.

Or do I get something wrong with the concept of search scopes?

Answer 4

http://thingsnowhere.blogspot.com/2009/07/sharepoint-how-to-exclude-results-from.html - may help. If you have more questions email me and I will try to answer them here.

Answer 5

You can also exclude a specific list using the setting List Settings -> List Advanced Settings -> Allow items from this list to appear in search results