Content Types Not appearing in the Metadata list

Yes it has been a while.

 I have been busy on a few projects inc forms server and a large MOSS project.

Anyway the reason for this post is to highlight something that i wasted a lot of time on with content columns and the meatdata list in the ssp.

The metadata list is used for searching, it allows you to define properties that can be used in the search screens. You can use it like propertytype1:”fred” directly in the search box to only search that property for that value.

Ishai also has poest how to use it for a field in the advanced search screens here…

You can also use them for displaying in the value of the field in the search results the method can be found here….

NOW..the problem

I create a page layout and the created some content columns for it.

I ran a full crawl to load the columns into the meatdata list so I could assoicated properties to them, but they didnt appear….

 The short and long of it is it seems after i populated the fields with sample data (ie created a new page based on the contet page i created) i ran another full crawl and slap! there they were.

Im trying to work out why this is, as in my book they should have apparead as the fields have been created. But thinking about it there may be some logic here. When you are creating a page you are only creating a template the fields dont really exist anywhere so they must have some data saved in a site structure in them so they can be used. This is different to adding the columns to a document library as tha list and its fields do exist in a site..

Hope this makes sense if not email me…..