sandrider,
I am not responding regarding your original question but making a comment on code style you may want to consider.

#getting the parameters from the cgi object
    $type    = $cgi->param('type');
    $mudpit  = $cgi->param('mudpit');
    $url     = $cgi->param('url');
    $boldRed = $cgi->param('bold_red');
    $maxHits = $cgi->param('max_hits');
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I would most likely have written that as:

my %data;
$data{$_} = $cgi->param($_) for qw(type mudpit url bold_red max_hits);
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You may also want to check out the Vars method if you need the entire parameter list fetched.