A survey of faceted search

Faceted Search is an exploratory search mechanism, which provides an iterative way to refine search results by a faceted taxonomy. With the benefit of search results diversification, no need for a priori knowledge, and never leading to zero result, it can significantly reduce information overload. Faceted Search has witnessed a booming interest in the last ten years. In this paper, we first analyze the representative facet search models. Next, we present a general faceted search framework, and survey the related methods and techniques, including facet term extraction, hierarchy construction, compound term generation and facet ranking. Then we discuss the metrics for faceted search evaluation, and also highlight the main characteristics of a number of existing faceted search systems. Some directions for future research are finally presented.