The Real Cost of Poor Search
If you’re reading this, you’ll already be aware that your organisation’s SharePoint search isn’t all it should be. You’ll have personally struggled, or completely failed (!), to find what you were looking for. And you’ll know that others regularly have the same problem.
Time wasted on searching isn’t just inconvenient: it drains productivity, it slows decision-making, and it results in duplicated work. When people can’t find what they need, they waste other people’s time seeking help, they use outdated files, next best thing information, or they recreate content (and it may not be an improvement).
You’ve probably done all these things yourself, and you’re not alone. ‘Search not working’ is one of the most common issues we encounter.
But don’t think that this shared experience in some way makes the problem acceptable. Not only is effective search fundamental to an effective digital workplace, but it reflects its state. In short, if people can’t find what they need, the whole system is failing.
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‘SharePoint Search Is Broken’ . . . or Is It?
Functionally, SharePoint is capable of highly effective search. If you’re hearing that ‘SharePoint search is rubbish’, the real issue is unlikely to be SharePoint’s search engine. However, it could be poor information architecture, outdated or inconsistent metadata, disconnected or siloed content repositories, bad content lifecycle management, or a combination.
We’ll come back to how you can address this later. But for clarity, SharePoint can deliver the powerful, accurate search that your people need. However, it’s only possible with the right foundations in place.
A Single Source of Truth
You’re probably familiar with the data management principle of storing and maintaining critical business information in one authoritative location. A single source of truth (SSOT). Among the many advantages of this is improved search effectiveness.
Clearly, if search can access all key information, it can provide comprehensive results. But if data resides across multiple disconnected systems, legacy platforms, and/or local drives, search will always fall short.
SSOT doesn’t necessarily mean using just only one platform, although naturally it helps. But it does mean being able to source, and search, everything from one place.
This can be achieved through a centralised digital workplace based on SharePoint, with a searchable front-end. Effectively this is an intranet or employee portal. But it goes way beyond traditional ideas of an intranet, providing access to all the tools employees need through a single front door.
There needs to be an intentional and consistent information structure underpinning this, with unified navigation, and a level of connection between core platforms. And organisations that make good use of their Microsoft 365 subscription, widely utilising Microsoft tools, will find it much easier to achieve this cohesive structure.
The key is having a sound structure, supported by good tagging, with good governance.
The Role of Governance and Permissions
Without proper governance, SharePoint search becomes ineffective. Returning irrelevant results, confusing duplicates, and sensitive content to some, while others are served content they can’t access.
Although most organisations start with good intentions and a structured governance plan, over time consistency degrades. Reading this, you’ll probably recognise inconsistent governance and permissions as part of your search problem.
There are many useful controls within Microsoft 365 to help with this, and a lot of the legwork can be removed through automations. Organisations with consistent governance will typically have staff dedicated to SharePoint governance enabling regular auditing and cleanup processes. This helps to maintain a strict correlation between search results and permissions, good content lifecycle management, and clear and up-to-date site/page ownership.
A Note on Copilot and the Future of Search
You, like many others at work, will already be using AI assisted search: at home, on your phone, and maybe at work. AI-powered search assistants, like Copilot, are changing search and making it more conversational. Increasingly, we’re asking questions instead of typing keywords. As well as making Microsoft Search more conversational, Copilot will make it more intelligent and integrated across your Microsoft ecosystem.
This reduces the importance of metadata and keywords, but increases the importance of well-structured, well governed content. For some, this may necessitate adapting their information architecture to work effectively with AI-powered search.
So, unless fundamental issues around structure, accessibility, and governance are resolved first, all Copilot will do is continue to provide a poor search experience, only faster. For IT leaders the implications are clear: get your house in order before switching on Copilot enterprise wide.
Closing Thoughts: Make Search Work Like It Should
Effective search is a fundamental part of user experience, and a good user experience is now recognised as critical to the success of your digital workplace. In short, employees should be able to confidently find what they need quickly and easily.
The challenge for IT is to make search not just available, but highly effective. This is about removing friction, improving productivity, and building a better digital employee experience. It means establishing a single source of truth, underpinned by a solid data structure, and ongoing governance.
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Additional FAQs
Why is it still hard to find things in SharePoint, even when everything is technically ‘in one place’?
Just centralising your files in SharePoint doesn’t automatically solve discoverability. The issue often lies in how content is structured, described, and managed once it’s in the platform. Without consistent folder structures, metadata, and naming conventions, even a centralised environment can become cluttered and hard to navigate — especially at scale.
Employees don’t search based on where files are stored; they search based on context: who created it, what project it’s related to, what it’s for. If SharePoint hasn’t been set up to reflect that logic, search won’t be able to surface relevant results.
To solve this, it’s essential to:
- Define and apply meaningful metadata (e.g. project names, document types, business areas)
- Use content types and site columns to standardise tagging
- Limit duplication and version sprawl by consolidating content libraries
- Make sure permissions aren’t unintentionally hiding useful documents
At Silicon Reef, we often support organisations in reviewing their content architecture and aligning it with how people actually work — helping to reduce noise and improve relevance in every search.
How can we make SharePoint Search feel more like a personalised experience?
One of the biggest shifts in digital workplace expectations is the demand for personalised, intuitive search — something that reflects your role, interests, and context. Fortunately, Microsoft Search (used in modern SharePoint) is built with personalisation in mind.
Key features to leverage include:
Bookmarks – Curated links that appear at the top of search results for specific queries. Great for promoting key policies or systems.
Search Verticals – Custom categories of results, such as “Policies”, “Project Documents” or “People”, allowing users to filter easily.
Audience Targeting – Tailors results (especially bookmarks and verticals) based on attributes like department or location.
Graph Signals – Microsoft 365 tracks your recent activity, frequent collaborators, and file usage to inform result ranking.
For a truly effective experience, you’ll also want to look at how users behave in the system. What are they searching for? What do they expect to find? We help clients build search strategies that are not just technically personalised, but actually aligned with day-to-day workflows and needs.
What role does tagging play in making search work better?
Tagging — through metadata — is one of the most powerful ways to improve SharePoint search. It provides structure, adds meaning to content, and enables filters and refiners that make it easier for users to zero in on what they need.
To be effective, metadata should be:
Consistent – Using predefined values or managed term sets prevents confusion and misspellings.
Relevant – Include fields like department, project name, document type, or status — whatever reflects how people think and search.
Mandatory (where appropriate) – Enforcing metadata on upload or creation helps keep your library clean and searchable.
You can then use these tags to:
Create search refiners – Let employees filter results based on metadata values.
Sort or group views in libraries – Easier to navigate large sets of documents.
Support dynamic content delivery – Web parts can show only content matching certain metadata rules.
At Silicon Reef, we help teams strike the right balance: applying enough structure to improve search, without overloading employees or slowing them down. Often, that means simplifying the tagging experience and automating where possible.
How can we support users who don’t trust SharePoint Search yet?
A common challenge is user perception: if someone had a bad experience with search in the past — irrelevant results, missing files, clunky filters — they’re less likely to try again. Overcoming this means improving both the technical setup and the user experience.
Here’s what helps:
Audit and clean your content – Remove outdated, duplicated, or misfiled content that clutters search results.
Promote key content – Use bookmarks or highlighted content to surface high-value documents easily.
Train and support employees – Show people how to use search filters, keywords, and targeted scopes effectively.
Refine over time – Monitor search analytics (e.g. popular queries, zero-results searches) to identify pain points and respond.
We believe that trust in search is built through small wins. At Silicon Reef, we often start with one or two business-critical journeys — for example, “how do I find the latest version of the brand guidelines?” — and optimise those before scaling the approach.
Is improving SharePoint Search a one-off task or an ongoing effort?
Improving search isn’t something you “tick off” once and forget — it’s an ongoing process, just like content management itself. As teams create more documents, restructure libraries, or take on new tools, your search experience can slowly drift out of sync with how people actually work.
To maintain an effective search experience:
- Review metadata and tagging practices regularly
- Update promoted content and bookmarks to reflect business priorities
- Monitor analytics (using Microsoft Search usage reports or PnP Modern Search telemetry) to spot broken paths or missed searches
- Re-crawl or re-index after major changes to ensure search picks them up
At Silicon Reef, we help clients put in place light-touch governance and feedback loops — so the search experience evolves as their digital workplace does. A little ongoing attention prevents search from sliding back into frustration territory.
