Pagination with search

I've had some issues searching with pagination. I've resolved it with the following code, but I feel I'm basically doing something fundamentally wrong. Could someone check and give me feedback about what this could be? Thanks.

PHP Code:

public function read()
{
  $this->load->library('pagination');
  $offset = 0;
  $config['base_url'] = base_url("language/read");
  $config['per_page'] = 3; // sql query LIMIT number
  $offset = ( $this->uri->segment(3) ? $this->uri->segment(3) : 0 );

  // set search
  if( $this->input->post('search') || $this->input->get('search') ) {
    $search = ( $this->input->post('search') ? $this->input->post('search') : $this->input->get('search') );
  }
  else {
    // user has hit return in an empty input field, or has clicked a query link with no property value
    $search = NULL;
  }

  $config['suffix'] = "?search=$search"; // attaches a query onto $this->uri->segment(3), aka $offset

  // !issue fix! user searches while offset is out of range of search result
  if( $offset != 0 && $this->input->post('search') ){
    redirect("language/read/0?search=$search");
  }
  // !issue fix! user searches while no GET query is in URL
  if( $offset != 0 && $this->input->get('search') === NULL ){
    redirect("language/read/0?search=$search");
  }

  $this->data['languages'] = $this->language_model->get_languages_pagnation($config['per_page'], $offset, $search);
  $config['total_rows'] = $this->db->query("SELECT id FROM languages WHERE title LIKE '%$search%'")->num_rows();
  $config['first_url'] = "0?search=$search"; // explicitly set this to the first link

  $this->pagination->initialize($config);
  $this->data['pagination'] = $this->pagination->create_links();
  $this->render('language');
}