---
title: "Refine search results"
slug: "refine-search-results"
abstract: "Describes filters, facets and sorting options in Sitecore Search and explains their different configuration options."
---
# Refine search results

Sitecore Search widgets are headless. They control what data is returned by the Search APIs, but they do not dictate how that data is displayed in the UI. This gives you full control over the design of your search experiences.

For example, if you want to allow visitors to filter using a particular attribute, you configure this by requesting the attribute or attributes for which you would like a list of values. You can then display these values as a list of check boxes or in a drop-down list. This configuration process is the same when offering facet search or sorting.

> [!important]
> If the request does not identify a sorting option, Search applies the default sorting configured for the widget.

Configuring filters and sorting options is essential to every implementation to improve the user experience of your website or application. If you want to offer faceted search, you need to configure facet options too. At runtime, you can make these options available to your visitors in the UI to optimize engagement.

The rest of this section describes how [filters](https://doc.sitecore.com/search/en/users/search-user-guide/refine-search-results/filters.html "Filters"), [facets](https://doc.sitecore.com/search/en/users/search-user-guide/refine-search-results/facets.html "Facets"), and [sorting](https://doc.sitecore.com/search/en/users/search-user-guide/refine-search-results/sorting-options.html "Sorting options") work, and how you can configure them to offer engaging search recommendation experiences.

> [!tip]
> The [preconfigured entities](https://doc.sitecore.com/search/en/users/search-user-guide/refine-search-results/preconfigured-settings.html "Preconfigured settings") *Content*, *Product*, *Category*, and *Store* have ready-to-use filtering and sorting options selected.