What are some common pitfalls when using PHP search scripts, and how can they be avoided?

One common pitfall when using PHP search scripts is not properly sanitizing user input, which can leave the application vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To avoid this, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with a database. 

// Example of using prepared statements to avoid SQL injection

$searchTerm = $_GET['searchTerm'];

$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM products WHERE name LIKE :searchTerm");
$stmt->bindParam(':searchTerm', $searchTerm, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->execute();

$results = $stmt->fetchAll();

Keywords

SQL injection XSS attacks input validation error handling performance optimization

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