diff --git a/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/FacetQNameUtils.java b/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/FacetQNameUtils.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..0ba4965684
--- /dev/null
+++ b/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/FacetQNameUtils.java
@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright (C) 2005-2014 Alfresco Software Limited.
+ *
+ * This file is part of Alfresco
+ *
+ * Alfresco is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+ * it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
+ * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+ * (at your option) any later version.
+ *
+ * Alfresco is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+ * GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
+ *
+ * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
+ * along with Alfresco. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+ */
+
+package org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr.facet;
+
+import org.alfresco.service.namespace.NamespacePrefixResolver;
+import org.alfresco.service.namespace.QName;
+
+/**
+ * This class provides some simple utility methods for dealing with {@link QName QNames}
+ * within the faceted search feature. The whole thing should be considered a hack to handle 'special cases'.
+ * <p/>
+ * These are not intended for general use, or else they'd be in the {@link QName} class.
+ * @since 5.0
+ */
+public abstract class FacetQNameUtils
+{
+    /**
+     * This method converts the supplied qname string into a {@link QName} object.
+     * It accepts both short and long form qname strings.
+     * 
+     * @param s a qname string, such as "cm:name" or "{http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}name"
+     * @param resolver this is needed to convert any qname prefixes into their long form.
+     * @return the QName instance.
+     * @throws NullPointerException if the provided string is {@code null}.
+     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if the provided string could not be recognised as a valid QName.
+     */
+    public static QName createQName(String s, NamespacePrefixResolver resolver)
+    {
+        final QName result;
+        
+        if (s.length() < 2) { throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot convert string '" + s + "'"); }
+        
+        if (s.charAt(0) == QName.NAMESPACE_BEGIN &&
+            s.substring(1).contains(Character.toString(QName.NAMESPACE_END)))
+        {
+            // Assume it's a long-form qname.
+            result = QName.createQName(s);
+        }
+        else if ( !s.contains(Character.toString(QName.NAMESPACE_BEGIN)) &&
+                 s.contains(Character.toString(QName.NAMESPACE_PREFIX)))
+        {
+            // Assume it's a short-form qname.
+            result = QName.createQName(s, resolver);
+        }
+        else if (!s.contains(Character.toString(QName.NAMESPACE_BEGIN)) &&
+                !s.contains(Character.toString(QName.NAMESPACE_END)) &&
+                !s.contains(Character.toString(QName.NAMESPACE_PREFIX)))
+        {
+            // No '{', '}' or ':' means it's a prefixless QName (SITE or TAG, in our case).
+            result = QName.createQName(null, s);
+        }
+        else
+        {
+            // We're not sure what sort of qname this is supposed to be.
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot convert string '" + s + "'");
+        }
+        
+        return result;
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/SolrFacetConfig.java b/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/SolrFacetConfig.java
index 8eb6390adf..a801af1b68 100644
--- a/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/SolrFacetConfig.java
+++ b/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/SolrFacetConfig.java
@@ -365,7 +365,10 @@ public class SolrFacetConfig extends AbstractLifecycleBean
 
         private static QName resolveToQName(NamespaceService namespaceService, String qnameStr)
         {
-            QName typeQName = QName.resolveToQName(namespaceService, qnameStr);
+            // Note that in resolving the QName string here, we expect there to be some facet QNames which are not
+            // really QNames. These are SOLR/SearchService 'specials', examples being "SITE" or "TAG".
+            // These will be resolved here to a QName with no namespace.
+            QName typeQName =  FacetQNameUtils.createQName( qnameStr, namespaceService);
             if (logger.isDebugEnabled())
             {
                 logger.debug("Resolved facet field [" + qnameStr + "] into [" + typeQName + "]");
diff --git a/source/test-java/org/alfresco/AllUnitTestsSuite.java b/source/test-java/org/alfresco/AllUnitTestsSuite.java
index f7628d091d..eefa90dcb3 100644
--- a/source/test-java/org/alfresco/AllUnitTestsSuite.java
+++ b/source/test-java/org/alfresco/AllUnitTestsSuite.java
@@ -99,6 +99,7 @@ public class AllUnitTestsSuite extends TestSuite
         suite.addTest(new JUnit4TestAdapter(org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr.SolrQueryHTTPClientTest.class));
         suite.addTest(new JUnit4TestAdapter(org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr.SolrStatsResultTest.class));
         suite.addTest(new JUnit4TestAdapter(org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr.facet.SolrFacetComparatorTest.class));
+        suite.addTest(new JUnit4TestAdapter(org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr.facet.FacetQNameUtilsTest.class));
         suite.addTest(new JUnit4TestAdapter(org.alfresco.util.BeanExtenderUnitTest.class));
         suite.addTest(new JUnit4TestAdapter(org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr.SpellCheckDecisionManagerTest.class));
         suite.addTest(new JUnit4TestAdapter(org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr.SolrStoreMappingWrapperTest.class));
diff --git a/source/test-java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/FacetQNameUtilsTest.java b/source/test-java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/FacetQNameUtilsTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6d51964d69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/source/test-java/org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/solr/facet/FacetQNameUtilsTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,103 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright (C) 2005-2014 Alfresco Software Limited.
+ *
+ * This file is part of Alfresco
+ *
+ * Alfresco is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+ * it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
+ * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+ * (at your option) any later version.
+ *
+ * Alfresco is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+ * GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
+ *
+ * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
+ * along with Alfresco. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+ */
+
+package org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr.facet;
+
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
+
+import java.util.Arrays;
+import java.util.Collection;
+import java.util.List;
+
+import org.alfresco.service.namespace.NamespaceException;
+import org.alfresco.service.namespace.NamespacePrefixResolver;
+import org.alfresco.service.namespace.QName;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+/**
+ * Unit tests for {@link FacetQNameUtils}.
+ * @since 5.0
+ */
+public class FacetQNameUtilsTest
+{
+    /** A test-only namespace resolver. */
+    private final NamespacePrefixResolver resolver = new NamespacePrefixResolver()
+    {
+        private final List<String> uris     = Arrays.asList(new String[] { "http://www.alfresco.org/model/foo/1.0" });
+        private final List<String> prefixes = Arrays.asList(new String[] { "foo" });
+        
+        @Override public Collection<String> getURIs()     { return this.uris; }
+        @Override public Collection<String> getPrefixes() { return this.prefixes; }
+        
+        @Override public Collection<String> getPrefixes(String namespaceURI) throws NamespaceException
+        {
+            if (uris.contains(namespaceURI))
+            { return prefixes; }
+            else
+            { throw new NamespaceException("Unrecognised namespace: " + namespaceURI); }
+        }
+        
+        @Override public String getNamespaceURI(String prefix) throws NamespaceException
+        {
+            if (prefixes.contains(prefix))
+            { return "http://www.alfresco.org/model/foo/1.0"; }
+            else
+            { throw new NamespaceException("Unrecognised prefix: " + prefix); }
+        }
+    };
+    
+    @Test public void canCreateFromShortForm() throws Exception
+    {
+        assertEquals(QName.createQName("http://www.alfresco.org/model/foo/1.0", "localName"),
+                     FacetQNameUtils.createQName("foo:localName", resolver));
+    }
+    
+    @Test public void canCreateFromLongForm() throws Exception
+    {
+        assertEquals(QName.createQName("http://www.alfresco.org/model/foo/1.0", "localName"),
+                     FacetQNameUtils.createQName("{http://www.alfresco.org/model/foo/1.0}localName", resolver));
+    }
+    
+    @Test public void canCreateFromShortFormWithNoPrefix() throws Exception
+    {
+        // The sensibleness of this from an Alfresco perspective is questionable.
+        // But this is what we must do to support 'QName' strings like "Site" or "Tag" in the REST API.
+        assertEquals(QName.createQName(null, "localName"),
+                FacetQNameUtils.createQName("localName", resolver));
+    }
+    
+    @Test public void canCreateFromLongFormWithNoPrefix() throws Exception
+    {
+        assertEquals(QName.createQName(null, "localName"),
+                     FacetQNameUtils.createQName("{}localName", resolver));
+    }
+    
+    @Test public void canCreateLongFormQnameWithUnrecognisedUri() throws Exception
+    {
+        // Intentionally no validation of URIs against dictionary.
+        assertEquals(QName.createQName("http://www.alfresco.org/model/illegal/1.0", "localName"),
+                FacetQNameUtils.createQName("{http://www.alfresco.org/model/illegal/1.0}localName", resolver));
+    }
+    
+    @Test (expected=NamespaceException.class)
+    public void shortFormQnameWithUnrecognisedPrefixFails() throws Exception
+    {
+        FacetQNameUtils.createQName("illegal:localName", resolver);
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file