A site hit frequency rule determines the rate at which SharePoint Portal Server requests documents from one or more Web sites during crawling. The rate can be specified as the number of simultaneous documents requested or as the delay between requests. By default, the site hit frequency is limited to five simultaneous document requests.

You can use the site hit frequency rule to modify demands on specific sites. Although you may want a higher document request frequency for creating or updating an index of your own intranet, it is recommended that you specify a lower frequency for external Web sites so that you do not overload the sites with document requests. Web sites can identify you from the e-mail address you provide when you configure an index management server. If you overload a site with requests, you could be denied access to that site in the future.

Site name expressions are evaluated in order. Typically, you should order the rules from most restrictive to most general, since the first matching rule is applied. For example, “*” must always be the last expression in the list, or any later rules will not apply. If you create a new site hit frequency rule while a crawl is in progress, the new rule is effective as soon as you save it. You do not need to wait for the crawl to complete before the rule is effective.

Related Topics

Adding a Site Hit Frequency Rule

Editing a Site Hit Frequency Rule

Deleting a Site Hit Frequency Rule

Moving a Site Hit Frequency Rule