SharePoint Advanced Management: Site admin control for restricted content discovery

Introduction

We are introducing an enhancement to SharePoint Advanced Management that allows SharePoint admins to delegate control of the Restricted Content Discovery (RCD) setting to site admins. Restricted Content Discovery limits whether content from specific SharePoint sites can appear in organization-wide search results and in Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences. This update improves governance and accountability by enabling site admins to manage RCD for their sites while providing required justification for any changes.

When this will happen

• Public Preview: Available now.

Who is affected

• SharePoint admins and SharePoint site admins using SharePoint Advanced Management.

What will happen

• Delegation of Restricted Content Discovery is off by default.
• SharePoint admins may enable delegation at the tenant level.
• When enabled:
  • Site admins will see the RCD setting in the Site Information panel for their sites.
  • Site admins can enable or disable RCD for their site.
  • Site admins must provide justification when changing the RCD setting.
• This provides clearer governance and decentralizes management for discoverability controls across the organization.

What you can do to prepare

No action is required to receive this update.

If your organization uses Restricted Content Discovery, consider the following steps:

• Review whether delegating RCD management aligns with your SharePoint governance model.
• To enable delegation, run the following in SharePoint Online Management Shell as an Administrator:

Set-SPOTenant -DelegateRestrictedContentDiscoverabilityManagement $true

• To check the current delegation status: Get-SPOTenant | Select-Object DelegateRestrictedContentDiscoverabilityManagement
• Update internal documentation or admin guidance if roles and responsibilities for RCD management are defined in your organization.

Learn more: Restrict discovery of SharePoint sites and content | SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | SharePoint | Microsoft Learn

Compliance considerations

No compliance considerations identified. Review as appropriate for your organization.