Use I'm-Feeling-Lucky type URL on 3rd party website

Question

An answer to this post explains that it is possible to use a URL to link somebody to the first web page in a Google Search result, like "I'm feeling lucky" does. For example https://www.google.com/search?btnI=I&q=your+query will take you to the first search result for "your query".

I want to do a similar thing for the search engine on a particular website: culpa.info. Culpa has a search engine of its own, and I want to be able to link someone to the first result of a search query.

I've attempted the same thing as with Google by using: http://www.culpa.info/search?q=mdes but no search is even attempted. I am given the prompt:

Please search for something a bit more substantial.

I only get the same result when using the actual search bar if I use a character like "@" or "$" or some other special characters. This also happens if the search bar is blank and you hit "search".

Why might this be happening?

Is it because I am using the wrong encoding or something?

How could I change my URL so that Culpa would successfully return the first result of the query for a search for mdes?

Answer 1

Part of the problem is that the search URL has to be constructed this way:

http://www.culpa.info/search?search=mdes

The other part is that unless their search engine has a feature to just return the first record from a search, you're not going to be able to do what you want. "I'm feeling lucky" is a feature of Google Search. Search engines don't all have the same features.

I don't even think they're using a search engine; it looks like it's just a simple database query on the back-end.

You'll need to direct your question/feature request to the managers of the site.