# Can I send an external URL to the Discourse API for it to return topics linking to that URL?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-send-an-external-url-to-the-discourse-api-for-it-to-return-topics-linking-to-that-url/392361
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** rest-api
**Created:** [December 29, 2025, 9:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-send-an-external-url-to-the-discourse-api-for-it-to-return-topics-linking-to-that-url/392361 "2025-12-29T21:57:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 5

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Andrew\_Rowe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/andrew_rowe/32/445877_2.png) [@Andrew\_Rowe](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Andrew_Rowe)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2025, 1:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-send-an-external-url-to-the-discourse-api-for-it-to-return-topics-linking-to-that-url/392361/5 "2025-12-30T13:13:25Z")

</div>

> [@merefield](#):
>
> Try this, e.g.:
> 
> `https://meta.discourse.org/search.json?q=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk`
> 
> Tidy results in JavaScript.

Wow, thanks Robert, this does work, I just tried on my own server.

> [@merefield](#):
>
> writing server side code on your external website for best outcome.

This sounds really similar to something I was trying to do earlier. My other server uses PHP and I figured out how to use Curl commands in a PHP module to hit the API and return json results to an ajax call from the client. Here is that topic

> [@Embed a list of Discourse topics onto an external site](https://meta.discourse.org/t/embed-a-list-of-discourse-topics-onto-an-external-site/293709/28):
>
> Since I didn’t get any hints I figured I’d answer a few of my own questions for anyone who looks just for reference YES, self hosted [official install](https://meta.discourse.org/t/install-discourse-in-production-with-the-official-supported-instructions/142537?silent=true) included the REST API Got hints from [api example thread](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-rest-api-comprehensive-examples/274354) how to make cURL calls from the terminal. Once the cURL commands worked I used this website to convert the command line version to PHP My other server runs PHP as backend and I make ajax calls from web page to function on the server. The Discourse spits out json and javascript it built fo…

---

_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-send-an-external-url-to-the-discourse-api-for-it-to-return-topics-linking-to-that-url/392361)._