WordPress custom search url

It’s easy. Just add this hook for template_redirect action and it will redirect your search queries to nice url:

function wpse8170_search_url_redirect() {
    if ( is_search() && !empty( $_GET['s'] ) ) {
        wp_redirect( home_url( "/something/" . urlencode( get_query_var( 's' ) ) ) );
        exit;
    }
}
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'wpse8170_search_url_redirect' );

Add to your .htaccess file:

# search redirect
# this will take anything in the query string, minus any extraneous values, and turn them into a clean working url
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \\?s=([^&]+) [NC]
RewriteRule ^$ /search/%1/? [NC,R,L]