Frequently Asked Questions

Still no luck? Try searching, and also check out our interactive troubleshooter.

Requirements

What are the system requirements?

FacetWP requires PHP 7.0+ (since FacetWP v4.0) and WordPress 5.0+ (fully compatible with WordPress 6.4.3).

Does FacetWP work on WordPress.com?

No, FacetWP is a plugin for self-hosted WordPress installs.

Does FacetWP support PHP8?

Yes, FacetWP fully supports PHP 8.x.

The minimum supported version is PHP 7.0 (since FacetWP v4.0). The PHP Stats page helps us determine when to drop support for older PHP versions.

(Pre-) sales

Do you offer a free trial version?

We offer a free trial version, with the following limitations:

  • A maximum of 2 facets will display on a page;
  • A persistent admin notice will appear in the WP admin dashboard;
  • We cannot provide any support.
Do you offer refunds?

No, we do not offer refunds. Please use our free trial to see if FacetWP is right for you.

I’m not a developer. Can I still use FacetWP?

See our Getting Started screencast. If the video doesn’t make sense to you, then you’ll probably need to find a developer to assist you.

Do you offer custom development services?

We do not current offer paid implementation services. For custom development (site buildouts, design tweaks, other customizations) we recommend Codeable.io.

Features and integrations

Does FacetWP work with my theme?

Probably. There’s tens of thousands of themes out there. If you tell us which theme, and we’ll try to figure out whether the theme is compatible.

Which page builders does FacetWP support?

FacetWP integrates with Bricks, Elementor and Beaver Builder.

FacetWP does not officially integrate with Divi, WP Bakery, or Oxygen Builder. Depending on your template setup you may get things to work, but these builders are not officially supported.

On these non-supported builders, you could always use FacetWP’s built-in Listing Builder to build your post listing. Or you could use Gutenberg blocks, or a custom WP_Query, or the WP archive page itself (if your post listing is an archive).

Does FacetWP integrate with WooCommerce?

Yes! FacetWP supports any plugin that uses post types to store products. WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and Jigoshop are all compatible.

One caveat: some page components (e.g. pagination and sorting) may need to be replaced with FacetWP facets for paging and sorting, although FacetWP has built-in support for WooCommerce’s default pagination and sorting.

Can I use FacetWP with WordPress blocks?

Yes, if you install the Blocks add-on, you can use facets alongside the following block types, in classic and block themes:

Source/Plugin Block name
WordPress WordPress Query Loop blockQuery Loop
WordPress Posts  List blockPosts List
WordPress Latest Posts blockLatest Posts
WooCommerce WooCommerce Products (Beta) blockProducts (Beta)
GenerateBlocks GenerateBlocks Query Loop blockQuery Loop
Kadence Blocks Kadence Posts blockPosts
Stackable Stackable Posts blockPosts
Spectra Spectra Post Grid blockPost Grid
Spectra Pro Spectra Loop Builder blockLoop Builder
Otter Blocks Otter Blocks Posts blockPosts

Consequently, with this add-on installed, you can also use FacetWP with these supported blocks in .html templates in block themes.

Can I use FacetWP to filter pages?

Yes, FacetWP supports listing and filtering of posts, pages, and any custom post type (as long as it is searchable).

Additionally, with a Professional license you can install the User Post Type add-on, which allows you to map users to a post type, and therefore filter users.

Can I use FacetWP to filter custom post types?

Yes, FacetWP supports listing and filtering of posts, pages, and any custom post type (as long as it is searchable).

Additionally, with a Professional license you can install the User Post Type add-on, which allows you to map users to a post type, and therefore filter users.

Can I use FacetWP to filter categories or terms?

No, FacetWP does not support filtering directly on categories or taxonomy terms, with one exception: product categories on WooCommerce shop- and product category archive pages.

But you can filter posts, pages, and posts of any custom post types by category or taxonomy term(s): by setting a taxonomy as a facet’s data source.

Besides posts, pages and custom post types, you can filter users, if you install the User Post Type add-on, which comes with a Professional license.

Can I use FacetWP to filter user listings?

Yes, Professional licenses include the User Post Type add-on, allowing you to map users to a post type, and therefore filter users.

Does FacetWP support WordPress multi-site?

FacetWP can be installed on sub-sites in a WordPress multi-site network setup. But FacetWP cannot filter across different sites.

Please also remember that each sub-site counts against your license’s site limit.

How can I disable admin notices to install add-on integrations?

Since version 4.1.8 FacetWP displays admin notices when you have certain plugins installed and the necessary integration add-ons are missing.

These notices were added because many users are unaware of the fact that some plugins do not work with FacetWP unless the related add-on is installed. For example, WPML needs the Multilingual add-on installed to work with FacetWP.

There are certain situations however in which you don’t need the integration add-ons. In these cases you can permanently disable these notices by adding the following code to your (child) theme’s functions.php:

How to use custom PHP code?

PHP code can be added to your (child) theme's functions.php file. Alternatively, you can use the Custom Hooks add-on, or a code snippets plugin. More info

add_filter( 'facetwp_dismiss_notices', '__return_true' );

Licencing and updates

Do I get plugin updates?

Yes, automatic updates are enabled for sites with an active license key.

What happens when my license expires?

FacetWP will continue to work, but you will no longer receive plugin updates or support.

How much do renewals cost?

We offer a 20% renewal discount on the normal price.

Why are automatic updates not appearing in my dashboard?

Make sure that you’ve activated your license (Settings > FacetWP > Settings). If you’re still not seeing updates, go to Dashboard > Updates, then click the Check again button. Sometimes WP’s update cache need to be flushed.

Do staging sites count against the site limit?

Depending on your licence type, you can use your license up to 3 or 20 live sites.

You are also allowed to use it on as many local / dev / staging sites as needed.

You can see in your account which sites are considered as staging sites.

Troubleshooting

Why do my facets disappear?

The most common cause of facets disappearing is because your facet shortcodes are inside of the facetwp-template container element. The element with that class will be dynamically replaced when using facets, so facets need to be outside of it to keep functioning properly.

In listings made with the Listing Builder, this issue will never happen, because the class will be automatically placed on the right element.

But if you are using a WP Archive or a custom WP_Query, or a setup with a page builder query/posts block for your listing, your facets may end up inside the element that has the facetwp-template class.

The solution in all cases is removing the facetwp-template class from where you placed it (if you did), and manually placing it on an element that (directly) surrounds the post loop.

For further explanations about the role of the facetwp-template class in FacetWP’s automatic query detection, and ways to fix issues with it, see the sections about it on the Using a WP Archive and Using a custom WP_Query pages.

Why is my facet empty?
  • Have you hit the Re-index button?
  • Does a valid listing template exist on your page?
  • Is your post type searchable? (is the exclude_from_search parameter set to false when the post type is registered)?
  • Does your facet show any rows after indexing? If not, there could be something wrong with the facet’s selected Data Source. Make sure that you select a valid data source and check if your posts have (valid) values saved for the selected field. After making corrections, re-index again to see the updated row counts. To check if a facet is working okay in general, you can test with its Data Source set to “Post Type” and re-index.
  • Are there any JavaScript errors in your browser’s console?
  • Turn on Debug Mode and make sure that FacetWP is using the right query.
  • For some specific types of custom fields — like serialized data or relationship fields — you may need to tell FacetWP’s indexer how to properly index the data.
  • Do you have post IDs higher than 4294967295? If so, your posts cannot be properly indexed because of the limitations of the database field that stores these post IDs. Implement this fix to increase this limit.
Why am I seeing “FacetWP was unable to auto-detect the post listing”?

If you’re seeing this error it’s because FacetWP can’t find a suitable query. This usually happens when you have a custom WP_Query on a standard WordPress page. To let FacetWP detect the custom query, you have to add facetwp => true to the query arguments. See this section for more information.

This error can also happen if you are using the WP External Links plugin, or, if you are hosting your site on WP Engine, by WP Engine caching FacetWP’s API URL or by WP Engine’s object cache.

Why are my facets loading slowly?

FacetWP itself is very fast. It normally takes a fraction of a second to load results. However, every WordPress request (including AJAX) is only as fast as the slowest plugin.

The AJAX requests that FacetWP uses on pages with filters are ignored by most caching plugins, so the load time you’re seeing with FacetWP is your server’s and website’s true speed.

If FacetWP takes a while to load, there’s likely a larger underlying issue. Make sure to disable any unnecessary plugins, and ensure that your server has sufficient resources.

You can read more about the possible causes of slow filtering, and FacetWP’s speed and limitations when indexing, filtering and searching in our performance article, which also lists things you can do to speed up the filtering process itself.

If you want to increase the (true, uncached) loading speed of you pages, check out our tutorial about how to use Query Monitor to optimize performance by optimizing your database queries.

And see our guide on how to make your website load faster for an overview to get you started with increasing server and website performance.

We also have a free Caching add-on that caches FacetWP’s AJAX requests, which may help on high-traffic sites.

Why is my layout different or are images missing after filtering?

Some plugins and themes use JavaScript to modify the layout, load images, or apply animation effects. Some examples include masonry or isotope layouts/grids, image lazy loading, and sliders/carousels.

These scripts run on the initial page load, but do not usually run after each FacetWP AJAX refresh, meaning that they’ll likely need to be manually re-triggered within a facetwp-loaded event.

Some theme and plugins offer a setting that (re-)triggers these scripts on AJAX refresh.

Why am I seeing duplicate results in my listing?

If you are seeing duplicate posts in your listing, especially in combination with a Pager/Load more facet or Sort facet, the cause is almost always the way the posts are ordered in the query, which is determined by the orderby query argument.

If results are ordered by a value that is the same (or empty) for multiple posts, or by a random value, MySQL does not have a fallback and will often sort erratically.

In this tutorial you can read which scenarios can cause this, and how to fix it quickly by adding a secondary, fallback sort order to the listing query.

Why isn’t FacetWP working with my caching plugin?

If you’re using a caching plugin, in general, make sure that HTML minification and script deferring are disabled.

FacetWP has built-in support for WP Rocket.

Also, see our tips and tricks for using Cloudflare, Fast Velocity Minify, and WP Engine.

What should I do if indexing stalls?

FacetWP’s indexer can stall temporarily, for several reasons. If this happens, the first thing to do is wait a few minutes. FacetWP includes built-in resume functionality. It should resume automatically after a minute or two, if you keep the FacetWP settings screen open.

In specific circumstances, the indexer can get permanently stuck, often around the same percentage. These are the most common causes:

read more

Why are my value modifiers not working?

Value modifiers need to be entered like this:

How to enter value modifiers correctly: use the exact labels with capitals and spaces, each on one line, without commas.
How to enter value modifiers correctly: use the exact labels with capitals and spaces, each on one line, without commas.

The following two things often go wrong:

The values you enter in a facet’s “Value modifiers” field need to be each on a separate line in the form field. Do not put them on one line with commas or add commas to each line.

The values also need to match the label (not the slug) of the value exactly, including spaces and capitalization.

For example, if you have a category called “Fall Collection”, the value entered in the “Value modifiers” field needs to be exactly that: Fall Collection.

If you have not modified the facet values with output hooks like facetwp_facet_display_value, the quickest way to determine the labels is to look at the facet value labels themselves: the labels beside the checkbox or radio button, or the options in the dropdown. Make sure to check if capitalization is not changed with CSS, for example with text-transform: lowercase.

Why is my Sort facet not working on my products/shop page?
The only two WooCommerce's 'Default product sorting' options that work with Sort facets.
The only two WooCommerce’s “Default product sorting” options that work with Sort facets.

If you are using WooCommerce, and your Sort facet does not work on your products/shop page, you probably have set WooCommerce’s “Default product sorting” setting to a sort option that is incompatible with Sort facets.

There are only two “Default product sorting” options that work with Sort facets:

  1. Default sorting (custom ordering + name)
  2. Sort by most recent

The other sort options are incompatible because FacetWP cannot change them.

For more info and ways to still use one of the incompatible sort options, see this section on the WooCommerce page.

Why are my Listable / Listify homepage facets and submit button not working?

The Listable and Listify themes both have FacetWP integration that, at the time of writing, is incompatible with FacetWP 3.9.x.

Listable and Listify are using deprecated FacetWP functions, causing facets and the submit button on the homepage to malfunction.

read more

Technical

How to add labels / headings above each facet?

See this explanation on how to add headings above facets, and how to customize them.

How to hide empty facets?

See this explanation on how to hide empty facets.

How to hide facet counts?

How to hide the counts depends on the facet type and how general or specific you want to target facets to hide the counts for.

Facets with a dropdown UI type need a different approach than facets with checkboxes or radios. Some facets can have different UI types, so the method varies.

How to hide counts for facets of type:

Can I use multiple queries / FacetWP templates on the same page?

Introduced in FacetWP v4.0 is the possibility to add more than one listing template to the same page.

Each listing template can have its own grid layout, styling, and query. But only one of them can be “dynamic” and will react to the facets on the page. The others have to be “static” listing templates and will not react to facets.

Alternatively, you could also add more than one custom query / post listing to the page (e.g. using WP_Query), but these also wouldn’t be tied to FacetWP filtering.

Does FacetWP support infinite scroll?

No, FacetWP does not support infinite scroll, which is intentional.

Plugins that add any form of infinity load / infinite scroll will not work as expected.

The closest thing is the Pager facet, which has a pager type that generates a “load more” button, working similar to infinite scroll.

How fast is FacetWP?

FacetWP was built with performance in mind and is very fast itself. We’ve structured and highly optimized our data storage and have analyzed every query to make sure that it runs as efficiently as possible.

So ultimately, FacetWP’s speed depends on your server, the theme setup, your plugins, and the amount of content. If your server is overloaded (i.e. too many heavy plugins or other users) or underpowered (too little memory or CPU power), then obviously FacetWP will not run at its peak.

See our guide on how to make your website load faster for an overview to get you started with increasing server and website performance.

Factors that determine the speed of filtering itself:

You can read more about each of these factors in our performance article, which also describes the possible causes of slow filtering, and FacetWP’s speed and limitations when indexing, filtering and searching.

If you want to increase the (true, uncached) loading speed of your pages with facets, check out our tutorial about how to use Query Monitor to optimize performance by optimizing your database queries.

We also have a free Caching add-on that caches FacetWP’s AJAX requests, which may help on high-traffic sites.

What are FacetWP’s limits and scalability?

Check out our performance article about FacetWP’s speed, limits and scalability when indexing, filtering and searching.

Does FacetWP support pretty permalinks?

We are occasionally asked whether FacetWP supports pretty URLs, e.g. /make/audi/model/a4/ instead of ?_make=audi&_model=a4.

FacetWP only supports GET-based permalinks. “Pretty” permalinks quickly lose their appeal as more selections are made. Plus it may actually be bad for SEO, since search engines would see many different URLs with the same content.

That’s probably why most large eCommerce sites stick with GET-based permalinks.

For more info about FacetWP’s URL, see this page.

Why does FacetWP prefix its URL vars?

FacetWP’s query variables use a _ prefix to prevent conflicts with WordPress and other plugins.

WordPress has many reserved terms and reserved query variables. Unexpected things would happen if FacetWP would use them.

For more info about FacetWP’s URL variables, see this page.

How to track pageviews with Google Analytics?

This page explains how to track pageviews of facet pages with Google Analytics 4.

Can I use “OR” logic between facets?

No, when using multiple facets, they are always compared using “AND” logic. FacetWP is designed to “filter down” in the results.

Using “OR” logic is possible for individual facets. If you are using a Checkboxes facet or an fSelect facet, you can use “OR” logic by setting the “Facet logic” setting.

Can I show facet choices with no results?

A frequently asked question is if it is possible to show all facet choices (for example all terms in a taxonomy), also if there are no results for some of those choices.

The answer is no; FacetWP only indexes and displays facet choices that have results.

Note that some facet types (like Checkboxes, Radio and fSelect) have a “Show ghosts” setting, which will show “ghost” (dimmed) choices if there are no results for them. But the same applies for these ghost choices: they need to appear in the unfiltered results, and can only become ghosts after being filtered out. If a facet choice has no associated posts, then it will never appear.

How to automatically scroll the page on facet interaction?

An often-asked question is how to automatically scroll the page to the results (or to the top of the page, or another target) when using facets, a specific face (type), or even a specific facet choice.

Our page scrolling tutorial shows a wide range of examples that should cover most scrolling scenarios.

Pagination scrolling can be enabled with the Pager facet’s scroll target setting (available since FacetWP 4.2.12).

How to add a loading spinner or fade the results during facet refresh?

This tutorial explains how to add a loading text or spinner icon to the listing template during facet refresh.

You can also fade the listing template during refresh, or hide it until facets are selected.