Faceted Search is a search that returns a count of the prevalence of one set of attributes within entities that would be returned by a non-faceted search. Typically, non-faceted searches are performed by filtering. Entities that don’t match a filter are not returned, while others are returned. Faceting, however, takes all entities that would be returned from a corresponding filter search and returns a view of one aspect.
An example of a faceted search within Diffbot’s Knowledge Graph™ could include a search for software companies based in San Francisco with less than 50 employees, with the facet of industry. Where a filter search would return a list of entities meeting the search criteria, a faceted search on industry will return a list of industries in which these entities operate.
For a more detailed explanation of facets, see our entry here.