I need help with PowerShell script to disable search indexing on a list of sites and subsites.

Hi @Vincent Collogan ,

Welcome to Q&A forum!

To disable search indexing on a list of sites and their subsites, you can modify your existing script to include a recursive function that processes each subsite. Here's an example of how you can achieve this:

# Load SharePoint CSOM Assemblies
Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"
Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"

# Function to disable search indexing recursively
function Disable-SearchIndexing {
    param (
        [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext]$Ctx,
        [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Web]$Web
    )

    # Load the current web
    $Ctx.Load($Web)
    $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()

    # Check if the web is already excluded from search
    if ($Web.NoCrawl) {
        Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "$($Web.Url) already excluded from search index."
    } else {
        # Exclude site from search
        $Web.NoCrawl = $True
        $Web.Update()
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
        Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "$($Web.Url) excluded from search index successfully."
    }

    # Load subsites
    $Ctx.Load($Web.Webs)
    $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()

    # Iterate through each subsite
    foreach ($subWeb in $Web.Webs) {
        Disable-SearchIndexing -Ctx $Ctx -Web $subWeb
    }
}

# Sites list
$sites = Get-Content -Path "d:\temp\sites.txt"
Foreach ($site in $sites) {
    Try {
        # Setup the context  
        $Ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($site)  
        $Web = $Ctx.Web  
        Disable-SearchIndexing -Ctx $Ctx -Web $Web
    } catch {
        Write-Host "Error: $($_.Exception.Message)" -ForegroundColor Red  
    }
}

In this script, the Disable-SearchIndexing function is called for each site and its subsites, effectively applying the search indexing change recursively.

Hope this can help.

Good day!

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