What are some potential pitfalls to avoid when managing URLs, IDs, and categories in a web directory built with PHP?

One potential pitfall to avoid when managing URLs, IDs, and categories in a web directory built with PHP is not properly sanitizing user input. This can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with a database to prevent SQL injection.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM products WHERE category = :category');
$stmt->bindParam(':category', $_GET['category']);
$stmt->execute();
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();