Faceted navigation is a user-friendly search pattern that helps users filter listings by various attributes such as product type, color, size, and price on e-commerce and other platforms. However, it can lead to issues like index bloat and SEO challenges, causing duplicate pages and hindering user journeys. Solutions include using robot.txt files, no-index tags, and tools to analyze user experience and indexing performance.

1. Faceted Navigation
FACETED NAVIGATION

2. • Faceted navigation is a type of navigation pattern based on UX essentials of user search ease.
• This navigation pattern enables users to locate specific listings on category pages by filtering based on
various attributes associated with the listings.
Product Types: Shirts, Trousers, Dresses
Available Colors: Blue, Red, Green
Sizes: S, M, L, XL
Brands: Nike, Adidas
Price Range: $$40–$50, $60–$100

3. E-commerce: Filtering products by color, size, brand,
availability in stock, age the goods cater to, customer
ratings, price and more.
Library catalogs: Sorting books by genre, author, ISDN No,
subjects and publication year.
Travel platforms: Sorting journey by mode of travel like
flights, trains, bus, cars or sorting by date , airline, cost
schedules and more.
Real estate: Filtering properties by location, Real estate
certifications, amenities, post acquiring services or price.
Online directories: Sorting job, course, colleges, companies
listings by category, duration, ratings and more

4. •They are generally located on the sidebars of e-commerce or large websites.
Generally
located on the
sidebars

5. Major issues caused by faulty faceted
navigation
•Index Bloat- Indexing pages that have little or no index value or search value ( low quality
or redundant content)
•SEO issues- Duplicate pages being served, user journey getting hindered leading to less
orders or queries, inability to find the correct product or service, inability to know about the
service or product specifications, decreased dwell time on page or website.
• Resolution: Use robot.txt and no-index tags to block pages having minimum indexing
value. Use tools like Hotjar to map user journey so that you can assess the hindrance
area in the search, also use other website crawling tools regularly

6. Identifying Index bloat
• If you see a sharp radical increase in number of pages being indexed, it
is generally due to index bloat

8. Customer Service Issues - It generally leads to more customer or user complaint and higher
escalations
Wasted crawl budget