How to Make a Search Results Link

Here's a little tip I just figured out for myself. Maybe it's already been posted elsewhere by someone else or FAA itself, I dunno.

I wanted to link from a post on my external blog to all items in my FAA shop tagged with the word grunge.

I took my basic Images tab link:
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/randikuhne.html?tab=artwork

and appended it with this:
&keyword=grunge

resulting in this link:
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/randikuhne.html?tab=artwork&keyword=grunge

And it works perfectly, giving me exactly what I want: a link that directs my audience to all of my items that bear a specific tag. The link is expecially handy if I don't have a gallery for that tagged word.

The only limitation is that the word or phrase must be in the item's tags for it to come up in the search results from this link. (The only exception is pleurals. If an item has the tag cat and you make your link with the word cats it will still bring up everyting tagged cat.)

Due to the limitations of the current FAA search engine itself, you cannot make links that include multiple tags, such as sunset and orange. Unless that exact phrase is in your tags, items will not show up that are separately tagged sunset and orange. Likewise, you cannot exclude words or phrases, such as moon not full. (This was true when I wrote this post; it's possible FAA's search engine will include advanced searches at some time in the future.)

Always test your links to make sure they work as you expect them to.

Hope you find this tip useful!

--

Technical note: & is an html encoded ampersand. You can use it unencoded, it will work, it's easier to remember.
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/randikuhne.html?tab=artwork&keyword=grunge

Read more about encoding ampersands here if you care about properly validated code, or want to make sure your link will work in the place you are using it. How to use ampersands in HTML: to encode or not to encode? by Peter Coles.