Why I got 2 crawl properties for a single line of text field?

Question

I have a site column of type single line of text with internal name = DESTINATION. now when i wanted to define a RefinableString managed property for this field, i found that i got 2 crawl properties for the same column named (ows_DESTINATION & ows_q_TEXT_DESTINATION) as follow:-

so which one i need to use inside the mapping? and why i got 2 crawl properties instead of one?

Thanks

Answer 1

You can find an official answer here: Configure refiners and faceted navigation in SharePoint Server

When you search for a crawled property, you may find two crawled properties that represent the same content.

For example, a site column of type Text named Color will during crawl discover two crawled properties: ows_Color and ows_q_TEXT_Color. Crawled properties that begin with either ows_r, ows_q, or ows_taxId are automatically created crawled properties.

When you select a crawled property to map to a refinable managed property, make sure that you don't map the automatically created crawled property. Instead, always map the crawled property that begins with ows_

For more information about automatically created crawled properties, see Automatically created managed properties in SharePoint Server.

Even if the reference is for SharePoint Server, SharePoint Online for Microsoft 365 used the same concept for crawled properties.