Forum Discussion
Audience Targeting search exlusion
Hi, we have switched on the audience targeting. Now we want to exlude search results for users where theirs gruop is not included in audience column in folder, for example if i make a new called "N...
Hi buszi99
If you use Security Groups or Microsoft 365 groups as your audiences to target the data, then the search results will respect it in security trimming.
For web parts it works properly but if the search for this file they will find it
buszi99 How much time you waited after applying audience target? You may need to wait for some time after applying audience targeting - try after 24 or 48 hours for safer side.
If you've selected an audience group that you recently created or changed, it may take some time to see targeting applied for that group.
Related read: Audience Targeting for Quick Links Web Part in SharePoint Online
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- I set audience targeting group for one of sites a long time ago and still appears for users that it shouldn't
buszi99 To clarify, Audience Targeting is not the same as security. It is not respected by search overall but is respected if you use a search-based web part (like News with more than one site selected and Highlighted Content and the Viva Connections feed) AND you also enable the toggle for Audience Targeting. If a user searches for content that has been targeted with an Audience they WILL find it - and that is by design. If you don't want content to be visible in search, you need to secure the content itself. When you apply an audience to content, people who are not in the audience can find the content via search (if they enter a query where the content is applicable) or browsing in Site Contents.
Hi buszi99
Did you try using Security Groups or Microsoft 365 groups for audiences?
After applying the audiences, you will have to wait for 4 - 8 hours for incremental search crawl to run to see the result.
- Is there any difference beetween them in audience targeting ?
Hi buszi99
Security Groups, Microsoft 365 groups, or SharePoint groups - whichever you use for audience targeting will be respected by search results.
Maintaining audience targeting at Security Groups or Microsoft 365 groups is advisable at org level that at a SharePoint as a service level.
