Can I use a friendly URL on SearchAction? - url

Question

My current URL for searches is this one:
https://example.com/search/key/seach_word_here
JSON-LD
<script type='application/ld+json'>
[
{
"#context":"http:\/\/schema.org",
"#type":"WebSite",
"#id":"#website",
"url":"https://example.com",
"name":"Example",
"potentialAction":{
"#type":"SearchAction",
"target":"https:https://example.com/search/key/{search_term_string}",
"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"
}
},
{
"#context":"http:\/\/schema.org",
"#type":"Organization",
"url": "https://example.com",
"name": "Example",
"logo":"https://example.com/img/logo.png",
"#id":"#organization",
"sameAs": ["https://www.facebook.com/example"]
}
]
</script>
As you can see I'm using a friendly URL on the target.
I have seen people using a query string on the URL like this:
https://example.com/?search={search_term_string}
I did not see people using a friendly URL on the target. It's not allowed?
And at https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/sitelinks-searchbox it says:
Verify your search engine implementation by copying the WebSite.potentialAction.target URL from your structured data, replacing search_term_string with a test query, and browsing to that URL in a web browser. For example, if your website is example.com, and you want to test the query "kittens", you would browse to https://www.example.com/search/?q={kittens}.
I tested this url https://example.com/search/hey/{search_word_here} and I got a 404 not found, but this URL worked: https://example.com/?p=search&tp=key&word={search_word_here}.
So my question is: Can I use a friendly URL on the target? And the code on my snippet is correct?

Answer 1

Of course you have to use the URL that works.
Google will use the target URL for their Sitelink Searchbox, so that users can search on Google’s SERP and end up on your internal SERP. If you specify a target URL that leads to 404 pages, having this feature makes no sense, and Google would have no interest to enable it for your results.
If that URL happens to be friendly (e.g., without a query component), so be it.

Answer 2

Agree with above solution from #unor, now answering about you code correction
Please check the target url in posted JSON-LD:-
"target":"https:https://example.com/search/key/{search_term_string}",
Remove the double https:
Also in case of JSON-LD: you cannot map name value to /{search_term_string}
A correct way is always like this:-
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"#context": "http://schema.org",
"#type": "WebSite",
"url": "[website url]",
"potentialAction": {
"#type": "SearchAction",
"target": "[website search url]={search_term}",
"query-input": "required name=search_term"
}
}
</script>
Microdata:-
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/WebSite">
<meta itemprop="url" content="[website url]"/>
<form itemprop="potentialAction" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/SearchAction">
<meta itemprop="target" content="[website search url]={search_term}"/>
<input itemprop="query-input" type="text" name="search_term">
<input type="submit">
</form>
</div>