Hey, I want to add a button(link), that when clicked will filter the pagination results.

I'm new to php (and programming in general) and would like to add a button like 'Automotive' and when clicked it updates the 2 mysql queries in my pagination script, seen here:

As you can see, the category automotive is hardcoded in, I want it to be dynamic, so when a link is clicked it places whatever the id or class is in the category part of the query.

1:

$record_count = mysql_num_rows(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM explore WHERE category='automotive'"));

2:

$get = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM explore WHERE category='automotive' LIMIT $start, $per_page");

This is the entire current php pagination script that I am using:

<?php

    //connecting to the database
    $error = "Could not connect to the database";
    mysql_connect('localhost','root','root') or die($error);
    mysql_select_db('ajax_demo') or die($error);

    //max displayed per page
    $per_page = 2;

    //get start variable
    $start = $_GET['start'];

    //count records
    $record_count = mysql_num_rows(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM explore WHERE category='automotive'"));

    //count max pages
    $max_pages = $record_count / $per_page; //may come out as decimal

    if (!$start)
       $start = 0;

    //display data
    $get = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM explore WHERE category='automotive' LIMIT $start, $per_page");
    while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($get))
    {
     // get data
     $name = $row['id'];
     $age = $row['site_name'];

     echo $name." (".$age.")<br />";

    }

    //setup prev and next variables
    $prev = $start - $per_page;
    $next = $start + $per_page;

    //show prev button
    if (!($start<=0))
           echo "<a href='pagi_test.php?start=$prev'>Prev</a> ";

    //show page numbers

    //set variable for first page
    $i=1;

    for ($x=0;$x<$record_count;$x=$x+$per_page)
    {
     if ($start!=$x)
        echo " <a href='pagi_test.php?start=$x'>$i</a> ";
     else
        echo " <a href='pagi_test.php?start=$x'><b>$i</b></a> ";
     $i++;
    }

    //show next button
    if (!($start>=$record_count-$per_page))
           echo " <a href='pagi_test.php?start=$next'>Next</a>";

    ?>