The optimal search experience seems to be the new trend. Faceted search is found in intranets and enterprise search applications, as well as other content-heavy sites. However, this takes a budget with enough power to sustain search applications to take you the whole journey. What are the other options?
CMS Wire brought this to our attention in their article, “Open-Source Options for Faceted Search, for the Budget Conscious User.” The most popular option is open-source faceted search platform Apache Solr, which includes a simple faceting toolkit to create a basic faceted search experience. It can also be easily extended to implement more advanced interfaces. Another option is the Drupal Open-Source Content Management System.
The common denominator is open source software. Though it is easier on the budget, faceted search is fueled by taxonomy and metadata, so without those you should reserve some budget to create the necessary information structures the search will require.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
