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PHP Search Engine TutorialSearch Engine Tutorial
Heard of Google? or Yahoo!? ... of course you have. Also you know exactly what they do. But why should you just let Google or Yahoo or other search engines take all the glory. Why not try yourself and make your own Search Engine in PHP and MySQL. Ok, you won't beat Google.. but you can have a really good try.
Database Stuff
Open up your phpMyAdmin (or database software) and add this query below into the SQL section.
CREATE TABLE `searchengine` (
`id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`pageurl` VARCHAR( 255 ) NOT NULL ,
`pagecontent` TEXT NOT NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY ( `id` )
) ENGINE = MYISAM
This will allow the information to be stored in the database.
Creating the Form
The database information is now added. Now we need to make the form that allows you to search. So create a file called 'index.php'
The form will be using GET instead of POST. (So the information will be visible in the address bar)
<form action="search.php" method="GET">
<b>Enter Search Term:</b> <input type="text" name="term" size="50"> <b>Results:</b> <select name="results">
<option>10</option>
<option>20</option>
<option>50</option>
</select><br>
<input type="submit" value="Search">
</form>
That's the form completed. This will allow you to type in a query and also select the number of results you want to show on the form.
Processing the Query
Create a new file 'search.php'. This is the page where the results from the search being shown.
You will need to connect to the database first
<?php
mysql_connect("localhost", "USERNAME", "PASSWORD");
mysql_select_db("DATABASE");
Now perform the MySQL query (as a query)
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM searchengine WHERE pagecontent LIKE '%$_GET[term]%' LIMIT 0,$_GET[results]");
The above query will search in the page data (that we'll be adding later on) and show it as many times as you specified. Now let's create the Array that'll show the results.
while($ser = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
echo "<h2><a href='$ser[pageurl]'>$ser[pageurl]</a></h2>";
}
Then just add a link at the bottom that goes back to the original index page.
?>
<hr>
<a href="./index.php">Go Back</a>
Adding Information
Great! The search engine frontend is basically complete! Now we just need to make a little form that adds information into the database.
Create a new page called 'addurl.php' and create a simple form.
<form action="./addurl2.php" method="POST">
Page URL: <input type="text" name="url" size="50"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Add URL">
</form>
Now create a second page called 'addurl2.php' and this is where the information will be processed and added to the database ready to be searched.
Connect to the database
<?php
mysql_connect("localhost", "USERNAME", "PASSWORD");
mysql_select_db("DATABASE");
The URL of the page will now get its source code read and made into a varible.
$pagedata = htmlspecialchars(file_get_contents($_POST['url']));
This little line will remove some single quotes that will usually mess up the query.
$pagedata = str_replace("'","",$pagedata);
Now to insert the information into the database.
mysql_query("INSERT INTO searchengine VALUES ('','$_POST[url]','$pagedata')");
Give a small added message, just so you know it's been added.
echo "URL Added.<br><a href='./addurl.php'>Continue...</a>";
?>
Finished
There you go... a nice simple search engine. You can now goto 'addurl.php' and enter the URL(s) of the page(s) that you want added into your search engine. Obviously if you search for 'b' you'll get loads of results because it'll be reading stuff like '<b>'.
What you should have learned...
- How to build a HTML form
- How to connect to a database
- How to read information from a database
- How to add new information into the database
Things to make it better?
- Modify the 'addurl.php' page to filter out certain words and/or phrases.
- Use pagination (so you can show more than 50 results on more than 1 page)
- Create an Admin Control Panel, so you can add, edit and delete results.
- Password protect the 'addurl.php' and 'addurl2.php' pages to stop other people from adding information.
- Add categories to the search (eg; news, blogs, technology, entertainment)
- Adapt on the methods used in this tutorial to make a discussion board / forum with different rooms and categories
Feedback
I'd love to hear your feedback. If you have any then please contact Dale Hay (that's me!) or leave a comment! |
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10th Aug 2008 11:14
Thanks for this tutorial, it's really helpful. Only thing I was wondering about, is your thoughts on making a crawler. Let's be honest, this ain't going to be a large search engine ;) |
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17th Sep 2008 13:46
really very good and simple By 3m masr |
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29th Sep 2008 1:05
nice tut! |
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29th Sep 2008 13:19
AWEZOMENEZZS   |
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30th Sep 2008 11:15
If i want to remake this one to make it search for pictures, how would i do that?, tips wanted. By gnutt3n |
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5th Oct 2008 20:43
hi Dale
i have used your search engine in which i think is absolutely brilliant as i was using one of those free search engine things hosted on the net before, however i have been messing about with it as when i upload a url to the database i would like to add other data e.g keywords, address, and so on could you please help me to do this by way the line break between each result works great thankyou very much
kind regards
Mark Proctor |
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25th Oct 2008 8:34
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5th Nov 2008 1:56
:P thankss :D very much |
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9th Nov 2008 20:13
Hi Dale, and thanks for this great tutorial. It will truly be a great asset to my website when I finish it, but I have a couple of questions first of all.
On the addurl2.php page, is it possible to echo/display a list of URLs that have previously been added?
Also, how complicated can this tutorial expand to? Is it possible to show a segment of text on the results page which contains the word or phrase that the user searched for?
Thanks again,
Patrick By Patrick |
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11th Nov 2008 20:42
Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/www/idebate.reviveddesigns.com/search.php on line 18
Here's my code (i modified yours only by changing it to use a dbConfig.php file I made):
<?php
//database connect
include ("dbConfig.php");
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM searchengine WHERE pagecontent LIKE '%$_GET[term]%’ LIMIT 0,$_GET[results]");
while($ser = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
echo "<h2><a href='$ser[pageurl]'>$ser[pageurl]</a></h2>";
}
?> |
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