Hm,
your httpd.conf might need a line as:
AddHandler cgi-script .pl
also.
Did you check your
result.pl for what it produces? Does it write a new document header, eg. if it would use cgi.pm's objects.
Then it would seem that you force your server to process a processed document.
How does your
search.pl look alike, is there a
target set as an argument for the form which might force the clients browser to show the result in a new window?
Well you might try to use apaches ability (other http servers have this as well) to process server side includes.
then your code would look alike:
<html>
<!--#include virtual="/1337/common_inc/top_section.inc"-->
<head>
</head>
<body>
<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/1337/search.pl"-->
</body>
</html>
But I would recommend to clearly review the code of your above named perl scripts (and check what they return, simplest call them from a shell) and make sure they behave as you think they do. And you might think about uniting both scripts, or utilizing the one or the other.
Have a nice day
All decision is left to your taste