Configure Faceted Navigation

Overview

Faceted navigation uses content metadata fields and values to provide users with filters for creating and refining search queries. This approach enables users to incrementally narrow down results based on relevant criteria.

To implement faceted navigation in Bloomreach Content, complete the following steps:

Configure a virtual faceted node tree in the content repository.
Implement navigation of the faceted node tree in the delivery tier.

Note: For a practical example, see Add Faceted Navigation to the News Overview Page in the Build a Website tutorial.

Demo and Example Implementation

The GoGreen online demo demonstrates faceted navigation on several pages, including the Blog and Products overview pages.

You can review an example implementation in the Hippo Test Suite.

Features

Faceted navigation supports the following capabilities:

Navigation over a subset of the repository by specifying one or more root folders. Only descendants of these folders are included. When accessed through preview or live entry points, only published documents are included on live sites.
Support for multi-valued properties. For example, if a document has an 'author' property with values 'Jane' and 'Maria', the document appears under both authors in the navigation. Multi-valued dates with range support are also available.
Free drill path navigation. If navigation is based on 'brand' and 'product', users can start browsing by either facet.
Guided drill paths. You can configure facets to appear only after a previous facet is selected (e.g., 'month' appears after 'year').
Configurable limits for the number of facet values per facet.
Configurable sorting for each facet (by count, facet value, or custom configuration).
Configurable limits and sorting for documents in the result set. Sorting options include case-insensitive or normalized sorting. By default, result sets are ordered by Lucene scoring for free text searches.
Resolution-based browsing for date properties. Users can navigate by year, month, or day as if there were separate facets, even when only a single date property exists.
Range support for Strings, Doubles, Longs, and date resolutions (such as 'this year' or 'this month').
Configurable filters. You can restrict navigation to specific document types, documents containing certain words, or combinations of these filters.
Ability to combine faceted navigation with free text search queries.
Support for XPath queries as defined in JSR-170.

You can combine these features in any configuration.

The result set from faceted navigation includes all nodes that match the selected facet-value combinations.

Faceted Tree Configuration

Refer to the following guides for configuration steps:

Delivery Tier Implementation

For details on integrating faceted navigation with free text search and HST queries, see:

Faceted Navigation Combined with Free Text Search and HST Queries