Manage metadata properties for search (Search Server 2010)

 

Applies to: Search Server 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2012-04-18

You can enhance the end-user search experience by mapping crawled properties to managed properties. Crawled properties are metadata (such as author, title, or subject) that are extracted from documents during crawls. Managed properties can appear in refined searches and help users perform more successful queries.

Refined searches can be performed only on managed properties, not crawled properties. To make a crawled property available for refined search queries, you must map the crawled property to a managed property. You can map multiple crawled properties to a single managed property or map a single crawled property to multiple managed properties. If a managed property has multiple crawled properties mapped to it, and a document contains values for more than one of the crawled properties, the order in which the properties are mapped and their priority determine the value of the managed property.

For example, three different document types might have different names for the property that identifies the author. One document type might name this property Author, another Writer, and a third Property3. Although all three are crawled properties, only the documents with the Author property appear in search results when a user queries by author. To ensure that all documents appear in search results, map each of these crawled properties to the Author managed property.

Procedures in this article:

• To view managed properties and crawled properties

• To add a managed property

• To edit a managed property

• To delete a managed property

• To map a crawled property to a managed property

To view managed properties and crawled properties

1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

3. Click the Search service application for which you are viewing managed and crawled properties.

4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Metadata Properties. Mapped properties appear. To view crawled properties, click Crawled Properties.

To add a managed property

1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

3. Click the Search service application for which you are viewing managed and crawled properties.

4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Metadata Properties.

5. On the Metadata Property Mappings page, click New Managed Property.

6. On the New Managed Property page, in the Property name box in the Name and type section, type the name of the new managed property.

7. In the Description box, type a description of the property.

8. Under The type of information in this property, select one of the following options for the property:

   • Text

   • Integer

   • Decimal

   • Date and Time

   • Yes/No

   • Has Multiple Values

9. In the Mappings to crawled properties section, select one of the following:

   • **Include values from all crawled properties mapped   **Select this option if you want values from all crawled properties to be mapped for a given document. A query for a property in a document in which all crawled properties are mapped returns a result if any of the crawled properties that are mapped match.

   • **Include values from a single crawled property based on the order specified   **Select this option if you want only a single value mapped. When multiple crawled properties are mapped to a managed property, the one that is chosen is the first in the list that has a value for a given document. You can reorder the list by using the Move up and Move down buttons.

10. Click Add Mapping to add a mapping to the list. The Crawled property selection dialog box appears.

11. Configure the settings as follows:

    1. On the Select a category menu, click either All categories or a specific type of document category (for example, Office or XML).

    2. In Select a crawled property, click a crawled property to map to the managed property that you are adding.

       Because the list of crawled properties is likely to be long, you can type the name (or the first part of the name) of the property that you are looking for in the Crawled property name box, and then click Find. A truncated list appears.

    3. Click OK.

12. On the New Managed Property page, in the Use in scopes section, select the Allow this property to be used in scopes check box if you want the property to be available for defining search scopes.

    Tip

    Only select this check box for properties that you intend to use in scopes. Each property that you set as a scope increases the size of the index, which you should avoid when possible.

13. In the Optimize managed property storage section, select the Reduce storage requirements for text properties by using a hash for comparison check box if you only need this property to have equality/inequality comparisons. Leave the check box cleared if you need to enable other types of comparisons (such as less than, greater than, and order by). Select the Add managed property to custom results set retrieved on each query check box to add this property to the restricted set of properties for optimized queries that use a custom results page to show special managed properties. Click OK.

Note

Changes to the property mappings take effect on a document-by-document basis as soon as a document is crawled, regardless of the type of the crawl. A full crawl ensures that the changes are consistently applied to the entire index.

To edit a managed property

1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

2. On the Metadata Property Mappings page, click the managed property that you want to edit.

   You can find information about the managed property settings, including how to add a new mapping, in the To add a managed property section.

To delete a managed property

1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

2. On the Metadata Property Mappings page, point to the managed property that you want to delete, click the arrow that appears, and then click Delete.

3. Click OK when asked if you want to delete the managed property.

Deleting a managed property has the following consequences:

• Users will no longer be able to query by using this property.

• If a scope uses this property in its rules, the scope will no longer work.

• If custom search applications or Web Parts use this property, they will no longer work.

To map a crawled property to a managed property

1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

2. On the Metadata Property Mappings page, click Crawled Properties.

3. On the Crawled Properties page, click the crawled property that you want to map.

4. On the Edit Crawled Property page, in the Mappings to managed properties section, click Add Mapping.

5. In the Managed property selection dialog box, select a managed property, and then click OK.

6. On the Edit Crawled Property page, if you want to include values for the crawled property in the search index, select the Include values for this property in the search index check box. This option makes values for the crawled property searchable when a full-text search is used. Crawled properties are usually searchable only when a property-based search is used.

7. Click OK.

8. In the message box advising that the changes will not take effect until after the next full crawl, click OK.

   Note

   The changes actually occur on a document-by-document basis during the crawl.

Video demonstrations

This section includes a series of videos demonstrating how to use metadata properties, including:

• How they work

• How to map a crawled property to a managed property

• How to create a custom property

• How to modify the Advanced Search page to include a managed property

How metadata properties work

This video demonstrates how metadata properties work and discusses crawled properties and managed properties and how they are used.

Watch the video (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=208823). To download a copy, right-click the link, and then click Save Target As.

Map a crawled property

This video demonstrates how to map a crawled property to a managed property.

Watch the video (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=208824). To download a copy, right-click the link, and then click Save Target As.

Create a custom property

This video demonstrates how to create a custom property, how it becomes a crawled property, and how to map it to a managed property for use in direct queries.

Watch the video (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=208825). To download a copy, right-click the link, and then click Save Target As.

Modify the Advanced Search page

This video demonstrates how to modify the Advanced Search page to include the managed property of your choice for use in queries.

Watch the video (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=208826). To download a copy, right-click the link, and then click Save Target As.

See Also

Concepts

Plan metadata properties for search (Search Server 2010)
Crawled properties reference (Search Server 2010)