HTML URL Encoding

Understanding URL Encoding

Percent encoding represents bytes as % followed by two hexadecimal digits. Non-ASCII characters are commonly encoded as several UTF-8 bytes. Encode the appropriate URL component, rather than assuming each character maps to one ASCII byte.

In a URL component, a space is percent-encoded as %20. Form-style application/x-www-form-urlencoded data represents spaces as +; a literal plus must be encoded. Choose an encoder for the component and data format.

URL encoding ensures that your web applications can handle international characters, special symbols, and reserved characters without breaking functionality. Reserved characters like ampersands (&), question marks (?), and equal signs (=) have special meaning in URLs, so they must be encoded when used as actual data values rather than URL structure delimiters.

Use the interactive tool below to encode and decode URLs easily. The reference table shows commonly encoded characters and their percent-encoded equivalents, helping you understand how different characters are represented in valid URLs.