Enterprise Search Center items not indexed?

Question

We're on SharePoint Online and during a test I wanted to retrieve list items from a list stored in our in our Enterprise Search Center under {tenant}/search/. I noticed that in a search query specifying the path to the list did not return any results like it would with any ordinary site collection under {tenant}/sites/. I also tried retrieving a file from /search/SiteAssets/ but with the same result i.e. 0 items found.

Is this normal and is there a way to have content under /search be indexed?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes, it is normal. The Enterprise Search Center template will create a site, which is configured to not be indexed by the search crawler.

You should be able to re-activate the indexing of the search center by going into the "Site Settings" and select "Search and Offline Availability". There you see the Option "Allow this site to appear in search results" set to "No".

After you've changed this option to "yes", the site should be visible in future search queries. Keep in mind that SharePoint Online might take a while to pick the site up. For good measure, visit the above configuration again and hit the "Reindex site" button.