Guide 11 · Developer docs

Search, filtering and faceted navigation

Site search on Core dna is an Elasticsearch index that the platform fills and queries, and a page you build. What reaches the index, search views, the search page, product facets, filtered listings that need no index, and when to go beyond the built-in index.

Unit 04 of 05 3 pages

Listings without the index

Updated 23/10/2026 01:46

Many filtered pages need no search index at all. Filtering a module's listing from its URL and routes, where a script should remember filter state, and the line at which a listing should become a search view. For theme and front-end developers.

A listing that filters on its records' own fields is simpler than a search view, always current, and respects a member's permissions, so reach for it first. Filtering a listing from the query string covers the URL operators, the tag and category routes, and what matters once the site is cached and has real traffic: keeping the filter in page links, and declaring it to the page cache.

Where filter state belongs is short and front-end only: the URL holds the filter, and the one thing a script remembers belongs to the tab. When a listing should become a search view gives the threshold, with what each side costs; read it before building a view for a page that could have been a listing.

In this unit

Read in order

01 Filtering a listing from the query string Many listings need filtering but not the search index. How a module's listing route filters its records from the URL, the operators and the reserved parameters, the tag and category routes that do it better, and what to get right in pagination and the page cache. 02 Where filter state belongs On a filtered listing or a product finder the URL is the filter state. When a script also remembers a visitor's choices, state that belongs to one tab goes in sessionStorage and a preference for every tab in localStorage; mixing them up makes two tabs fight over one filter. 03 When a listing should become a search view A plain listing is always current, needs no index and respects the visitor's permissions; a search view matches words, ranks across record types and counts facets. Where the line between them falls, and what each side costs, so that nothing moves onto the index without a reason.

Objects ReferenceGenerated from the platform, so it is always current

API ReferenceEvery REST endpoint, in cURL, PHP, Python and JavaScript

Listings without the index

In this unit