Search box with dropdown to search external site

@npanina2006

You want to pass values from one server to another server ?
Did you already Altavista for an answer ? ha ha – sorry, couldn’t resist

I think you could use curl :
https://curl.haxx.se/docs/
Other than that, I guess you could pass in a query string, but it would be better/safer to store them in a db table first. There are crappy ways to do this, using directives likes Server.Transfer or some sort of re-direct, but I wouldn’t do it.
Put it this way, If may boss came to me with this task, I would just straight up say no.

Better ways are to create an index on your main server. You could do this using Elastic Search, or in my experience I have used Solr to accommplish this. The data lives in another db, so Solr goes and gets the data and builds an index file. I have a cron that runs every 15 minutes to update the index.

@npanina2006

Did you find a solution to your search issue?

I am also looking at how to do this within WordPress. I can easily do it using the following standalone html form:

<form id="form_id" method="post" name="search" action="search.php">
<select name="site" id="site">
<option value="https://my.wordpress_site" selected>Wordpress site</option>
<option value="https://www.site1.com">site1</option>
<option value="https://www.site2.com">site2</option>
</select>
<input type="text" value="" name="term" id="term" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

I then pass the variables, “site” and “term” onto search.php which combines them and sends them on to the selected site to search, outside of WordPress.

It works fine on its own. I am now trying to figure out how I could pull it into WordPress, so users could choose between searching the blog, or site 1 or site 2.

Digging around online and in the WordPress forum, I have found similar questions. It sounds like a common feature users are looking for.

If you’ve had any luck, I’d be interested in seeing what you did.

Thanks.