I'm having trouble  understanding how the Non portal  Content index  rules
work.

Documents stored  in my WSS sites  do not seem to be included  in portal
search results, even though they are included in results  of searches  run
from the sites themselves.

[Answer] This means you have full-text indexing turned on
for SQL Server and those databases. The site  index is a different index
than the portal index..........


I have a series  of WSS sites in my SPS portal site directory. Each of
the sites is included in the Site directory  search. In the document
libraries on each site, I have a metadata  field called  Job Code. When I
search for a value for the field  within the SPS site, I get dozens of
results. But when I go up to the portal and do the same search, the
search returns  only the containing site itself, and none of the matching
documents.

I have verified the following:

-This field is populated  for all of the documents  in the document
library.
-The Non-portal content  index has been through an incremental  update
(several) since the documents were added.
-The sites containing the documents are listed  in the manage  Crawls of
the Sites Directory, and the crawling  behavior is set  to crawl  This
Site.

[Answer] Is the site directory itself listed as a separate
content source? Usually, you don't need to list  each site as you're
doing if you simply create a single content source for the site
directory. This is one of the advantages to creating sites within the
/sites/ managed path in a portal because that entire site directory is
included automatically in the portal search  (by default  in a non-shared
services environment). I would suggest that you remove the sites in the
Manage Crawls of Sites Directory and create content sources to each of
your Site Directories. If you don't see how to do this, Enable the
Advanced View after clicking on Configure Search and Indexing.


-The sites are in the list of Approved sites
-The rules  for including  and excluding  content on the non portal content
index are set to:
-Exclude http://servername.domainname.com
-Include http://servername.domainname.com/*

[Answer] I have a live meeting coming up on site path rules.
Also, I spend an entire day on Search and Indexing at my Summit. I t
would be worth your while to attend..............

Are these Exclude and include  settings the default settings? And if so,
can someone explain  to me what these settings  mean with respect to the
Site Directory?

To answer your question, yes, the site  Directory is listed  as a separate
content source. Here are the settings  that are displayed for the Site
Directory:

Sites: 16
Default Behavior for New Sites: index  Under Site Directory
(System)
Default Behavior for New Links: Index Under Site Directory (System)
Sites Pending Approval: 0
Sites included  in Index: 8
Sites excluded from Index: 8

I also checked the boxes in the Manage content  Index properties to log
each document retrieved as well as any exclusions, and performed a full
update on the Non-Portal-Content index. I went through the log, and
picked out each of the items that pertained to the list.

There are 64 documents  in the library. In the log, there are 59 entries
that have the following format:

6/16/2005 11:09:11 AM Modify
Sts2://servername.domain.com/sites/SiteName/webid=000/listid={1FB9D620
-DFB7-46FE-87CF-18B22FA96393}/itemid=##
Done

There are another 5 that have this format:

6/16/2005 11:09:11 AM Modify
Sts2://servername.domain.com/sites/SiteName/webid=000/listid={1FB9D620
-DFB7-46FE-87CF-18B22FA96393}/itemid=##
Content for this URL is excluded by the server because a no-index
attribute.

Those 5 documents are .jpg, and are excluded for that reason. I know how
to correct that, so that is not a big deal.

But what seems strange to me is that the other 59 documents look like
they are getting indexed, but they do not seem to show up in search
results.