HTML URL Character Encoding

URL encoding converts characters to a format that can be transmitted over the Internet.

URL - Uniform Resource Locator

Web browsers request pages from web servers using URLs.

URL is the address of a web page, such as http://www.codew3c.com.

URL Encoding

URLs can only use ASCII Character Setto send through the Internet.

Since URLs often contain characters outside the ASCII set, they must be converted to a valid ASCII format.

URL encoding uses "%" followed by two-digit hexadecimal numbers to replace non-ASCII characters.

URLs cannot contain spaces. URL encoding typically uses '+' to replace spaces.

Try It Yourself

If you click the 'Submit' button below, the browser will URL encode the input before sending it. The page on the server will display the received input.

Try entering some characters, and then click the submit button again.

URL Encoding Examples

Characters URL Encoding
€ %80
£ %A3
© %A9
® %AE
À %C0
Á %C1
 %C2
à %C3
Ä %C4
Å %C5

For a complete URL encoding reference, please visit our URL Encoding Reference Manual.