How can PHP developers optimize the search functionality to handle a large number of results efficiently?

When dealing with a large number of search results in PHP, developers can optimize the search functionality by implementing pagination. Pagination allows users to navigate through search results in manageable chunks, reducing the load on the server and improving performance.

// Assuming $results is an array containing all search results
$resultsPerPage = 10;
$totalResults = count($results);
$totalPages = ceil($totalResults / $resultsPerPage);

$page = isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : 1;
$start = ($page - 1) * $resultsPerPage;
$end = $start + $resultsPerPage;

$paginatedResults = array_slice($results, $start, $resultsPerPage);

// Display paginated search results
foreach ($paginatedResults as $result) {
    // Display search result
}

// Display pagination links
for ($i = 1; $i <= $totalPages; $i++) {
    echo '<a href="?page=' . $i . '">' . $i . '</a> ';
}