Introduction to SharePoint On-Prem
Architecture & Setup
Site Management
Lists & Libraries
Pages & Content
Permissions & Security
Search & Navigation
Automation & Workflows
Integration & Extensibility
Development & Customization
Administration & Governance
Migration
Compliance & Records Management
Crawled Properties & Managed Properties
When a user searches for content in SharePoint, the system relies on a process of discovering and organizing information. This process uses two key types of properties: Crawled Properties and Managed Properties. Understanding the difference between them is crucial for a well-functioning search experience.
Crawled Properties
Crawled Properties are the raw, unrefined details that the search engine finds when it scans, or “crawls,” content. For example, when the search crawler looks at a document, it finds a lot of information, like the document’s author, its file size, the date it was created, and any tags or names that were given to it. This data is messy and not always easy to use directly. It’s simply a collection of everything the search engine can find.
Managed Properties
Managed Properties are the clean, structured fields that you actually use to search and display results. An administrator creates a managed property and then maps, or connects, one or more crawled properties to it. For example, a company might have different ways to identify an author across its systems. The administrator can take all the different “Author” crawled properties and map them to a single, clean “Author” managed property.
Why They Are Important
You cannot search directly on a crawled property. You can only search using a managed property. This two-step process gives administrators complete control over what is searchable in a company. It ensures that users get accurate and relevant results by allowing the search administrator to organize and standardize all the messy data that the crawler finds.
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