How to write search class?

I try to write OOP class, that makes searching by some incoming parameters. I can doing search by location, category, name and others things. How to make this class more professionally, abstract?

Now I have just one method in the class, that accepts request:

private function search($request)
{
    // TODO
}

The $request can contains any parameters described above.

I dont like to do:

if($request->category){

} else if($request->location){

} else if($request->name){

} ... etc