PowerShell command for index crawl in SharePoint sites

Question

Hi,

Is there a PowerShell command to kick off the index crawl after documents are migrated to a SharePoint site? Or is it better to just re-index the site?

We want to know our options as we will have SharePoint locations with a lot of documents, and the re-indexing may take a lot of time and impact users' search experience.

Also, in our SharePoint environment, we are using the Document ID service. Are you aware if the Document ID will get in the way of the index crawl?

Kind regards,

Nishanth Chakkere Ramesh

Answer 1

Hi @Nishanth Chakkere ,

Thank you for posting in this community.

Q1:

In SharePoint, you can use PowerShell to kick off the index crawl.

Use the PnP PowerShell cmdlet Request-PnPReIndexList to reindex a SharePoint Online list or library:

#Config Variables
$SiteURL = "https://Crescent.sharepoint.com"
$ListName="Projects"
 
#Connect to PnP Online
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -Credentials (Get-Credential)
 
#Request Reindex
Request-PnPReIndexList -Identity $ListName

Use the PnP PowerShell cmdlet Request-PnPReIndexList to reindex a SharePoint Online site:

#Config Variables
$SiteURL = "https://Crescent.sharepoint.com"
 
#Connect to PnP Online
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -Credentials (Get-Credential)
 
#Get the Web
$Web = Get-PnPWeb
 
#Request Reindex
Request-PnPReIndexWeb -Web $Web

It's fine for you to do individual re-indexing of all your document libraries that have migrated files or index the entire site.

Because re-indexing a SharePoint site does re-index the files in the document library. When you request a re-indexing of a site, all the content within that site, including the files in the document libraries, is marked as changed and picked up during the next scheduled crawl. This ensures that all the content is re-indexed and updated in the search index.

Q2: Will Document ID get in the way of the index crawl?

Document ID not get in the way of the index crawl.

However, it is possible that the migration will result in a DocID change, depending on how you migrate the files.

In SharePoint, a Document ID (DocID) is a unique identifier assigned to each document within a site collection. The Document ID remains the same only if the document is moved or renamed within the same site collection.

If you migrate documents to a new site collection or a site collection, the newly migrated documents will be assigned new Document IDs.

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