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I have just found out that pages and items (docx. ppt.) are showing in our global sharepoint environment, when using the search box and selecting "everything". This is showing results across multiple site collections.

I am the administrator for my site collection only. It is only accessible to certain people within the organisation, but I need to ensure that sensitive documents and pages cannot be searched through global search.

How can I stop anything from within my site collection from being indexed by global search?

I also am developing an internal staff knowledgebase and would like for the search function to still work for this. I'd assume that as it is searching internally for pages on a single site only, that it may still work as normal?

Kind regards,

K

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Search aggregates all the data across the farm into it's own database. When using the everything vertical from a search page, it is returning the user everything they have access to that matches that term. Search is global.

If your site collection is limited in access to a few people, then rest assured that only those people can access the content contained in your site collection in search results.

The only thing you can do is as an administrator of your site collection is to determine if your site is going to be indexed or not. If you select no, then it will not be indexed at all, which is not what you want.

In summary, there is nothing wrong here. Search aggregates and security trims the results based on the user who performed the search. They are seeing what they have access to.

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  • Thanks for your response Eric. I can see files from other site collections that I'm not sure I should be able to. Regardless, that is for those site collection admins to be concerned about. I am worried that other users from other site collections will be able to see files they shouldn't, but if all sites and sub-sites in my collection are properly permissioned, they shouldn't be able to see anything in global search?
    – KDB
    Jun 15 '16 at 10:28
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    Correct, if your collection and subsites are permissioned correctly, other users will not see your content in search. Users who do, will.
    – Eric Alexander
    Jun 15 '16 at 10:53
  • Thanks - I think this was a classic case of "I can see it, so everyone else must be able to" without remembering permissions and how they relate to search.
    – KDB
    Jun 15 '16 at 12:00
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You can edit the results webpart to show results from only the current site collection.

Go to the search results page and start editing the page. Select the Search Results webpart and click edit.

Click on "Change query" and then add a property filter. For property select "Path", select Contains, and for value select "This site collection". Then click Add property filter and click ok.

Apply the changes to the webpart and save the page.

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