Filtering

What is filtering?

Filtering (also known as faceted search) is a feature that allows visitors to your online store to narrow down the product list based on specific criteria. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of products, the customer can filter by size, color, price or brand and quickly find exactly what they are looking for.

Filtering is especially important in webshops with many products. The larger your assortment, the more critical it is that customers have efficient ways to navigate.

Typical filter types

• Price filter: Often shown as a range (slider) or predefined price groups. One of the most used filters in any online store.
• Color filter: Visual filter with color circles that makes it easy to select the desired color.
• Size filter: Essential for clothing and shoe stores where customers only want to see available sizes.
• Brand: Allows customers to focus on their favorite brands.
• Material type: Relevant for furniture, clothing and accessories.
• Availability: Only show products in stock - important to avoid frustration.
• Reviews: Filter for products with high reviews.
• Sorting: Price (low-high, high-low), popularity, newest, best reviewed.

Why is filtering important?

Better user experience

Customers who easily find the right product are more likely to buy. Research from the Baymard Institute shows that 42% of e-commerce sites have insufficient filtering and that this directly affects conversion rates negatively.

Lower bounce rate

Without filtering, you risk visitors leaving your store because they can't find what they're looking for. A good filtering experience keeps customers engaged and navigating your store.

Increased average order value

Effective filtering lets customers discover products they didn't know you had. When browsing is easy, they discover more relevant products and add more items to the cart.

Best practices for filtering

• Show number of results: Always show how many products match the selected filter so customers know what to expect.
• Avoid zero results: Hide filter values that give zero results or show them as unavailable. It's frustrating to select a filter and get a blank page.
• Offer "clear filter": Make it easy to reset filters and start over.
• Combinable filters: Let customers apply multiple filters at the same time (e.g. "blue" + "size M" + "under $500").
• Mobile filtering: On mobile, filters should be in an overlaid panel (slide-in) rather than taking up space in the layout as screen space is limited.
• Fast response: Filtering results should be displayed instantly (AJAX) without reloading the entire page.

Filtering and SEO

Filtering can have SEO implications that you should be aware of:

• Duplicate content: Filtered pages can create many URL variants with similar content. Use canonical URLs to tell Google which version is the preferred one.
• Crawl budget: If Google crawls thousands of filtered URL combinations, it wastes crawl budget. Consider blocking filtering parameters in robots.txt.
• Useful filters as landing pages: Popular filter combinations (e.g. "black running shoes") can be created as dedicated landing pages with unique content to rank for specific search terms.