Fix: The start address is not valid for this content source type

Ever get this error when trying to add a content source in SharePoint Search?

The start address is not valid for this content source type

This is because of the option “Crawl everything under the host name of each start address” which will accept only the host names(like https://sharePoint.com) and not the Sub-site URLs(like https://sharePoint.com/sites/abc/default.aspx)

If you enter https://sharePoint.com/sub-site/default.aspx and select “Crawl only the SharePoint site of each start address” then SharePoint will crawl from the top-level site of the given URL entered. Here SharePoint will crawl from https://sharePoint.com/ and all its sub-sites.


Reference: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262531(office.12).aspx

Salaudeen Rajack

Salaudeen Rajack - SharePoint Expert with Two decades of SharePoint Experience. Love to Share my knowledge and experience with the SharePoint community, through real-time articles!

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