Clean URLs for Tag & String Searches

Because Movable Type is not always installed on servers where customers have access to the servers apache config or an .htaccess file, MT’s tag and string search urls look like:

Tag Search and String Search (respectively)

http://chezbeau.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.fcgi?blog_id=1&tag=tomato&limit=20
http://chezbeau.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.fcgi?search=tomato&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20

These can easily be changed to more “clean” urls

http://chezbeau.com/tag/tomato
http://chezbeau.com/search/tomato

To convert your Movable Type powered site to use clean urls, follow these steps:

1. Edit your .htaccess file and add the following lines

   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule ^tag/(.*)$ /cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.fcgi?blog_id=1&tag=$1&limit=20
   RewriteRule ^search/(.*)$ /cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.fcgi?search=$1&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20
   

   The first line RewriteEngine on turns on the Rewriting Engine. The second and third lines use RewriteRule to map the desired urls to the actual urls.

2. Update tag links in tag clouds and on entry details by replacing <$mt:TagSearchLink encode_js="1"$> with:

   <$mt:BlogURL$>tag/<$mt:TagName normalize="1"$>
   

3. Update search form.

   This requires a few more invasive changes:

   1. add class search-form to the <form> element

   2. Include a link to jquery in your header. Use a local file or remotely hosted file like this one on Google:

      <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js"></script>
      <script type="text/javascript">
      $(document).ready(function() {
          $('.search-form').submit(function() {
              window.location.href = "/search/" + $('.search-form input:text').val();
              return false;
          });
      });
      </script>
      

Notes:

• Inspiration for this post came from David Roessli’s Blog
• Notes from Jay Allen on <$mt:TagSearchLink$> tag were also helpful.