Search is critical to a successful intranet. Now that we are using modern search in SharePoint / Microsoft 365, we have lost functionality that has been in the product for years. The key element that is missing is consistency in how document type results are displayed. SharePoint has always displayed the “Title” attribute of a file (if present) as the clickable item in search results. If no title attribute existed, it would display the file name. File names are typically not as readable or as user friendly as titles. Being able to specify a title gives the content owner on an intranet the ability to configure how that content will be displayed in search without breaking file paths and links in other documents.

With modern search, there are many inconsistencies in how documents are displayed. Largely, it will now use file names. This has greatly reduced the usefulness of search and would take a tremendous effort to update all files with new names and then update all hyperlinks that point to those files across our entire intranet.

This was a change that was not communicated to customers and has a large impact on the usefulness of search

Areas where is works as expected (displaying title if present)
- SharePoint Classic Search in Desktop Browser
- SharePoint Mobile Search - Android
- Microsoft Bing - Files

Areas that are now broken and always show filename:
- SharePoint Modern Search in Desktop Browser
- Instant Search in Suite Bar Search Box
- Instant Search in Suite Bar Search Box for news (shows both the filename version under files and the title version under News)
- SharePoint Mobile Search - iOS
- Microsoft Bing - All Types