The atg.repository.search.indexing.filter.HtmlFilter class removes any HTML markup from a property value. This is useful, for example, if text properties include tags for bolding or italicizing certain words, as in this longDescription property of a product:

You'll <b>love</b> this Italian <i>leather</i> sofa!

Because the HTML markup is included in the index, searches may return unexpected results. In this example, searching for “leather sofa” might not return the product, because that string does not actually appear in the longDescription property.

Using HtmlFilter, this value appears in the index as:

<PROP NAME="product.longDescription">
  <PVAL>You'll love this Italian leather sofa!</PVAL>
</PROP>

Now a search for “leather sofa” will find the value in this property and return this product.