FacetedSearchwithSolr.docVIP

Faceted Search with Solr PDF versionFaceted search has become a critical feature for enhancing findability and the user search experience for all types of search applications. In this article, Solr creator Yonik Seeley gives an introduction to faceted search with Solr. Table of Contents What is Faceted Search? Implementing Faceting with Solr Implementing the Manufacturer facet Implementing the Price facet Applying Constraints Resources By Yonik Seeley What is Faceted Search? Faceted search is the dynamic clustering of items or search results into categories that let users drill into search results (or even skip searching entirely) by any value in any field. Each facet displayed also shows the number of hits within the search that match that category. Users can then drill down by applying specific contstraints to the search results. Faceted search is also called faceted browsing, faceted navigation, guided navigation and sometimes parametric search. Its easiest to understand what faceted search is through an example, appropriately from CNET Reviews, the first website to use Solr even before it had been contributed to Apache by CNET. This example is actually faceted browsing because it started with all digital cameras and not a user search. Manufactuter is a facet of these search results, and the facet constraints or facet values for this facet include Canon USA, Sony, and Nikon. A previous screen also included Price and Digital camera type facets, but they are no longer displayed because we already selected the $400-$500 and SLRconstraints from those facets. Due to those constraints, the resulting facet counts and camera listings reflect only digital SLR cameras between $400 and $500 in price. Any of the displayed facet constraints can be clicked to drill down and further narrow the search results by that constraint. Applied constraints can be removed by clicking on them within the breadcrumb trail. Faceted search provides an effective way to allow users to refine