I'm currently seeing an issue on my farms where when I first create a site, even though the site's default.aspx page is automatically unpublished, if I run a crawl and perform a search, the site's friendly URL appears in the search results.  That appears to be the only only URL from that site that shows.  

I have tried logging into the site using my crawl account and I am unable to so, it doesn't appear to be a permissions issue.  

Right now, the only thing I can do is set it to not allow the site to appear in the search results right after I create it (before the crawl runs).

Is this normal behaviour?  I would have thought that since the site is unpublished, nothing from that site should show in the search results. 

Thanks.

I don't think a "site" is ever unpublished. Once it's created it is out there, and just because the default.aspx isn't published doesn't mean it won't appear in search results.

Is the issue that you don't want it showing up for your user base? If that's the case, then as long as they aren't set up with any permissions then they should not see it in any search results. You are seeing it because you're an admin and created the site.

• Marked as answer by Wendy DZMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Friday, April 25, 2014 9:21 AM

I don't think a "site" is ever unpublished. Once it's created it is out there, and just because the default.aspx isn't published doesn't mean it won't appear in search results.

Is the issue that you don't want it showing up for your user base? If that's the case, then as long as they aren't set up with any permissions then they should not see it in any search results. You are seeing it because you're an admin and created the site.

• Marked as answer by Wendy DZMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Friday, April 25, 2014 9:21 AM

Thanks for the reply.  The site is a publishing site with anonymous access so, all users are seeing it in their search results.  I was asking more out of confirmation to see if this was normal behaviour and if others are experiencing the same thing.  Thanks.

I was experiencing a similar problem and eventually solved it by adding the following to the search query:

NOT(ContentClass:STS_Web AND Size:0)

See more info here: http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/140188/how-to-prevent-search-returning-welcome-page-result-when-not-published-for-anony