First, make sure you use <code> instead of <pre>, so that your subscripts don't get turned into links :-)

That said cciulla's answer is right on the money, so I'll just offer a slightly expanded version. When you use the expression

/$search*/i
[download]

Perl is replacing the value of the $search variable before matching it, so if $search contains "rlanda", the match expression becomes:

/rlanda*/i
[download]

Now, the asterisk (*) means "zero or more of the previous expression". Unless the "previous expression" is a parenthesized one, it means "previous character". So you are looking for anything that contains "rland" followed by zero or more a's. Hence all the spurious matches.

From the looks of it, you don't need the asterisk at all. You will do fine with just

/$search/i
[download]

--ZZamboni