Should double quotes work when searching file shares?

Question

I feel like the answer is Yes, but I can't get it to work.

This is setup as an SP2016/O365 search hybrid with cloud ssa.

I have a result source like IsExternalContent:1 {searchTerms} and when searching for a phrase like "red dog" it doesn't return anything. It does return if I search just red dog, and I see the words red and dog next to each other in the hit highlights.

Using quotes against content stored in SharePoint Online sites works as expected, it's just the file shares crawled by Sp2016 which are acting up.

Answer 1

Could you please check if the IsExternalContent property is set correctly? I sounds like its broken in your case and could be a bug.

I would do the following:

1. get the awesome search query tool: https://sp2013searchtool.codeplex.com/
2. connect to your search and narrow down the results without the isexternalcontent property (e.g. use -path="" to exclude the other sources)
3. in the primary results tab click on "view all properties" and check if the isexternalcontent is set correctly for your results

Answer 2

A quoted phrase "red dog" is not the same as red dog. The phrase is an exact match. You should only get results containing the exact phrase. The second is essentially an AND query. The results should just contain both words in any order anywhere in the content.

You can also use proximity keywords like NEAR and ONEAR if you want more control than the simple AND query.

So, this "should work" as long as you have content that matches your query.