SPO Site Search returns tenant results instead

[Andrew Warland]

Searches from 'Search this site' on one (heavily accessed) site in a tenant returns tenant results (search scope 1) instead of just site results (search scope 3). All other site searches work as expected, so the problem seems to be with this site only.

The page source shows that both the home page where the search is conducted and the 'search.aspx' results page both have '0' (should be 'site') as the search scope. There are are no hubs; the results page shows the expected 'Organization' option but the results are identical to the 'Search this site' results. 

The last suggestion I have is to replace the seattle.master (and oslo.master) with 'newer' versions from newer sites, but I have a feeling the problem is somewhere else, possibly via something changed on or added to the home page - although I'm told no-one has changed anything, including any Site Collection or Site features. 

Apart from F12, anyone else have any suggestions as to what might force a 'search this site' to jump to tenant results? 

[#2]

@Andrew Warland hi Andrew i can see no one got back to you on this.. we're seeing the same issue this morning.. did you get any resolution?

thanks, 

Andy

[#3]

@muiraaah Hi Andy, no one ever replied to this. I wrote two related blog posts about this
https://andrewwarland.wordpress.com/2022/02/06/how-the-search-scope-returns-search-results-in-sharep...
https://andrewwarland.wordpress.com/2022/02/14/factors-that-can-affect-search-outcomes-in-sharepoint
There are a number of checks you can make (as described in the posts). In this particular case, the problem was a combination of issues. Only one site in the (large) tenant has this problem, but it's the primary site. All newly created sites work correctly. I think the answer would be to run the script (described in my posts) that re-sets the searchScope just for that specific site. Unfortunately I don't have access to do that with this particular organisation. Let me know if you can try that option.
Andrew