How to get Seo friendly URL in search bar in php

[jadprash]

I have posted three files one is .htaccess, search.php and header.php. Inside header.php I have a form that redirects to search.php. Basically, I am trying to make SEO friendly URL my current URL displays as example.com/blog/search.php?keyword=a expected result should be example.com/blog/search/a and example.com/blog/search.php?keyword=a&page=2 expected result should be example.com/blog/search/a/page/2. I have tried changing the .htaccess file and location in search.php but it doesn't work any solution, please.

htaccess file

RewriteRule ^search/([^/.]+)/page/([^/.]+)?$ search.php?keyword=$1&pn=$2 [L]

header.php

<?php if (isset($_GET['keyword'])) { $keyword = $_GET['keyword']; } else { $keyword = ""; } ?> <form class="d-flex" method="GET" action="search.php"> <input type="search" placeholder="Search" value="<?php echo $keyword; ?>" name="keyword" maxlength="70" autocomplete="off" required class="form-control me-sm-2"> <button class="btn btn-secondary my-2 my-sm-0" type="submit"><i class="fa fa-search" aria-hidden="true"></i></button> </form>

search.php

<? session_start(); include 'header.php'; //include 'config.php'; //pagination $keyword = $_GET['keyword']; if (empty($keyword)) { header("location: index.php"); } else{header("location: search/".$keyword); } if (!isset($_GET['page'])) { $page = 1; } else { $page = $_GET['page']; } $limit = 2; $offset = ($page - 1) * $limit; //pagination ends $sql = "SELECT * FROM blog LEFT JOIN categories ON blog.category=categories.cat_id LEFT JOIN users ON blog.author_id=users.user_id WHERE blog_title LIKE :keyword or blog_body LIKE :keyword ORDER BY published_date DESC LIMIT $offset,$limit"; $stmt = $conn->prepare($sql); $stmt->bindValue(':keyword', '%' . $keyword . '%', PDO::PARAM_STR); $stmt->execute(); $res = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC); ?> <div class="container mt-2"> <h3>Search result for:<span class="text-primary"><?php echo $keyword ?></span></h3> <div class="row"> <div class="col-lg-8"> <hr> <?php if ($res) { foreach ($res as $result) { ?> <div class="card shadow"> <div class="card-body d-flex blog_flex"> <div class="flex-part1"> <a href="../../blog/sp/<?php echo $result['blog_id']; ?>"> <img src="<?php echo base_url('admin/upload/').$result['blog_image']; ?>"> </a> </div> <div class="flex-grow-1 flex-part2"> <a href="single_post.php?id=<?php echo $result['blog_id']; ?>" id="title"><?php echo ucfirst($result['blog_title']); ?></a> <p> <a href="" id="body"> <?php echo strip_tags(substr($result['blog_body'], 0, 200)) . '...'; ?> </a> <span><br> <a href="../../../blog/sp/<?php echo $result['blog_id']; ?>" class="btn btn-sm btn-outline-primary">Continue Reading </a></span> </p> <ul> <li class="me-2"><a href=""> <span> <i class="fa fa-pencil-square-o" aria-hidden="true"></i></span><?php echo $result['username'] . '... '; ?></a> </li> <li class="me-2"> <a href=""> <span><i class="fa fa-calendar-o" aria-hidden="true"></i></span> <?php echo date("d-m-y", strtotime($result["published_date"])) . '... '; ?> </a> </li> <li> <a href="category.php?id=<?php echo $result['cat_id']; ?>" class="text-primary"> <span><i class="fa fa-tag" aria-hidden="true"></i></span> <?php echo $result['cat_name']; ?> </a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <?php } } else { echo "<h5 class='text-danger'>No record Found</h5>"; } ?> <!-- Pagination begins --> <?php $pagination = "SELECT * FROM blog WHERE blog_title LIKE :keyword or blog_body LIKE :keyword"; $run_q = $conn->prepare($pagination); $run_q->bindValue(':keyword', '%' . $keyword . '%', PDO::PARAM_STR); $run_q->execute(); $arr = $run_q->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC); $total_post = count($arr); $pages = ceil($total_post / $limit); if ($total_post > $limit) { ?> <ul class="pagination pt-2 pb-5"> <?php for ($i = 1; $i <= $pages; $i++) { ?> <li class="page-item <?php echo ($i == $page) ? $active = "active" : ""; ?>"> <a href="search.php?keyword=<?php echo $keyword ?>&page=<?php echo $i ?>" class="page-link"><?php echo $i ?></a> </li><?php } ?> </ul> <?php } ?> </div> <?php include 'sidebar.php'; ?> </div> </div> <?php include 'footer.php'; ?>

 

[ginerjm]

Tried to read thru you search.php code but your formatting makes it impossible.

[requinix]

7 hours ago, jadprash said:

Basically, I am trying to make SEO friendly URL

Search engines stopped caring about URL structures years ago. As long as you have the appropriate words in there, like "search" and the search keywords, then it's fine.

[jadprash]

I have attach sear.php in text foemat

search.txt

[MiniDynamo]

did you ever get the SEO-friendly URLs working with mod_rewrite? I'm playing around with similar stuff and was curious how you handled things like special characters or spaces in search strings. Anyone else had issues with encoding or redirect loops in their .htaccess setup?

[MiniDynamo]

ended up using mod_rewrite in .htaccess along with some PHP to handle readable slugs. I also found rankyak helpful for checking how clean URLs and slugs are understood by search engines. It's pretty cool for testing if your structure makes sense to bots and if you’re missing anything obvious in your setup.

Edited November 14, 2025 by requinix
removing link