Hey, I am still trying to allow multiple filters to be selected for my pagination script but not sure how to do it being very new to php and programing in general.

So in my pagination, when a user clicks the 'marketing' button(link) it queries the database just for the category that = marketing. The same goes for the other 2 filter buttons as seen in the script below. (automotive, sports).

The problem is, I want to be able to select multiple filters like only marketing and auomotive or automotive and sports, for example if I click the marketing filter and then the automotive, it would display the categories that equal marketing, and automotive.

I have no idea how to accomplish this, so I have come to the experts to help me out.

This is the script I am working on:

<h3>Filter results by:</h3>
<a href='pagi_test.php?category=marketing'>marketing</a>
<a href='pagi_test.php?category=automotive'>automotive</a>
<a href='pagi_test.php?category=sports'>sports</a>
<br />

<h3>Results:</h3>
<?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 = 3;

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

$category = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['category']);
//count records
$record_count = mysql_num_rows(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM explore WHERE category='$category'"));

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

if (!$start)
   $start = 0;

//display data
$get = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM explore WHERE category='$category' LIMIT $start, $per_page");
?>
<table width="800px">
<?php
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($get))
{
 // get data
 $id = $row['id'];
 $site_name = $row['site_name'];
 $site_description = $row['site_description'];
?>

<tr>
<td><?php echo $id; ?></td>
<td><?php echo $site_name; ?></td>
<td><?php echo $site_description; ?></td>
</tr>
<?php
}

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

//show prev button
if (!($start<=0))
       echo "<a href='pagi_test.php?category=$category&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?category=$category&start=$x'>$i</a> ";
 else
    echo " <a href='pagi_test.php?category=$category&start=$x'><b>$i</b></a> ";
 $i++;
}

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

?>

Any help on this would be great. Thank you.

-- EDIT --

If anyone has a better method of doing a pagination system with multiple filters than the one above, please let me know.