Consider a site that uses a price facet and a manufacturer facet. You may choose to have both facets display on your site side-by-side, so users can navigate to products through price selections or manufacturer selections. Each facet is independent of the other and provides the complete set of products: you are giving users the option to locate products in one of two ways. Here’s how the facets may appear on your site in this situation:
Prices
Under $100
$101-200
$201-300
$301-400
Manufacturer
Bavary
Devonit
Fulksome
Horck
Illique
Pewvire
Tapple
Alternatively, you can nest the manufacturer facet in the price facet, which provides one set of products organized in a two-tier system. You nest facets when you want to find the intersection of products that fit both criteria, such as products for a certain price by a certain manufacturer. On the site, the facets might be visible as follows:
Prices
Under $100
$101-200
$201-300
$301-400
Clicking the Under $100 selection might display the list of manufacturers that have products which cost under $100, for example:
Under $100
Manufacturers
- Devonit
- IIllique
- Tapple
Again, clicking a manufacturer name might display the list of products by that particular manufacturer in that price range.
The essential difference between nested and independent facets is that nested facets organize one set of products in a tiered hierarchy, whereas independent facets organize the same products in two separate groupings. It is possible to mix independent and nested facets. For example, you may want to present price and manufacturer facets independently, but within the price facet, you can nest another price facet. If your first price facet displays selections that range $100 and your site has many products under $100, a second price facet could define smaller ranges of $10 increments. The initial site display resembles the independent example:
Prices
Under $100
$101-200
$201-300
$301-400
Manufacturer
Bavary
Devonit
Fulksome
Horck
Illique
Pewvire
Tapple
Clicking the Under $100 link might display the following selections:
Under $100
$1 - 10
$11- 20
$21- 30
$31- 40
$41 - 50
$51- 60
$61- 70
$71- 80
$81 - 90
$91- 100
What determines whether a facet is independent or nested on site is its position relative to other facets in Facet view. A facet that appears nested on a site also appears nested in Facet view. The facets described earlier are represented as Price 100 Range, Price 10 Range, and Manufacturer Name facets in this Facet view:
Notice that Price 100 Range and Manufacturer Name are located on the same level, but Price 10 Range descends from Price 100 Range. In this example, all facets are global facets located in the Global Facets folder. Nested facets can be associated with catalogs or categories as well as the Global Facets folder: for example, a Size facet associated with a Clothing category may have Tall, Petite, and Regular facets representing alternate proportions as follows:
Facets that don’t have a nested relationship are independent of each other. If you have one global facet and one local facet associated with a category, those facets are independent of each other. Likewise, nested facets must exist in the same part of the hierarchy: you can’t nest a local facet in a global one.
Place your facets in the appropriate position in the hierarchy either by specifying a parent to a facet when you create it or by rearranging it later. For instructions on moving a facet, see Moving Assets.
