Nice search URLs

I have a form which submits to a search page. I can handle the MOD_REWRITE stuff at the back end but want to know the best way to get the search result page in a nice format in the first place.

Is it best to receive the form submission, then redirect to a nicer url structure. In the followin开发者_Python百科g example the user searches for blah.

/search.html?searchterm=blah

Which redirects to

/search/blah/

Or can I (my preferred option) do this using javascript (or jQuery) somehow after the user clicks the submit button?

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definitely you should read this tutorial:

• http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/how-to-post-forms-to-clean-rewritten-urls

basics:

1. mysql_real_escape_string() searched term
2. remove all non Alpha/Num chars
3. place the + between each matched word
4. SELECT MATCH AGAINST || IN BOLEAN MODE || LIKE

mod_rewrite

RewriteRule ^search/([^/\.]+)$ search.php?q=$1

PS: the PHP part in the link is a little bit outofdate, so, for example you should use preg_replace instead of ereg_replace, and you can also avoid the extra step of stripping spaces by doing it all in the first try; you may also check for stopwords and refine your regex as suggested ex.: foo-bar. there are other things to consider but for a novice is a good starting point.

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From your question I gather you want the browser to go to search/blah directly. You don't want to be forwarded.

The only way to do that is with javascript, since the way a form with method GET works is by definition not that way you want it.

What I would do is leave the form as it is, and use javascript to intercept the button click, then navigate to "search/"+escapedSearchTerm. This has the advantage that if no javascript is available, the default method still kicks in and the site still works.

The latency should really be neglectable for this.

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What search API are you calling?

You should be able to use Javascript or jQuery to pull in search results.

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I'd avoid using JavaScript for this. It's not really necessary. I'd probably just leave it simple with search.php?q=blah, but if clean URLs are important to you, then just rewrite search.html?searchterm=blah to /search/blah/ like you mentioned.

I don't think there really is a "best" way to format your URL. I guess it boils down to personal preference, unless there are performance issues involved with using mod_rewrite that I'm not aware of.

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I think will be better if the onclick() action of your submit button changes the action property of your form to something like /search/blah/ preventing your site's users to see that ugly url.

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GET requests are fairly standard for search engines. Having a URL like /search?q=blah is fairly normal and expected behavior and you should be able to accomplish this using mod_rewrite as you suggested.

JavaScript/jQuery is not a good approach for this. It would add additional client-side latency for something that should be handled on the server side (rewrite) especially if the request is properly constructed in the search form.