URL guide
URL Encoding Explained
URL encoding makes text safe to use inside links, query strings, redirects and API requests. It replaces spaces and special characters with percent-encoded values that browsers and servers can read reliably.
What is URL encoding?
URLs can contain letters, numbers and a limited set of safe symbols. Other characters, such as spaces, ampersands or non-Latin text, may need to be encoded so they do not break the URL structure.
hello world → hello%20world
name=John & city=Washington → name%3DJohn%20%26%20city%3DWashingtonWhen do you need URL encoding?
- Building query strings for search pages or filters.
- Passing text values to API endpoints.
- Creating redirect URLs with nested links.
- Sharing links that contain spaces, symbols or Unicode text.
- Debugging tracking links and campaign parameters.
How URL encoding works
Special characters are replaced with a percent sign followed by a hexadecimal value. For example, a space is commonly represented as %20. The ampersand character becomes %26 when it should be treated as text instead of a query separator.
Decoding reverses the process and makes the URL readable again.
Common mistakes
Encoding the full URL when only a parameter should be encoded
Usually you encode the value inside a query parameter, not necessarily the entire URL.
Double encoding
If %20 becomes %2520, the value was encoded more than once.
Forgetting to decode before debugging
Decoded URLs are easier to inspect when checking redirects, API calls or analytics links.
Encode or decode a URL
Use the online URL tools to safely transform text for links and query strings.
Open URL Encode Tool