W3C Rules for URLs

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) allows only ASCII characters in URLs.

When configuring URLs, the following characters are always allowed:

  • Alpha-numeric (A-Z a-z 0-9)
  • - (hyphen)
  • . (period)
  • _ (underline)
  • ~ (tilde)

Depending on the browser and the context, some characters require special formatting with Percent Encoding. A small number of possible values are shown in the quick reference table below.

You can designate the space character several ways:

  • + (works in all browsers, recommended because it is easiest to read)
  • %20 (Percent Encoded value, works in all browsers)
  • space character (works in the browsers supported by NNMi, but is not guaranteed to work in all browsers)
RFC 3986 Characters Reserved as Delimiters
(If not specifying a delimiter, use Percent-Encoding value)
Character : / ? # [ ] @ ! $
Percent
Encoded
%3A %2F %3F %23 %5B %5D %40 %21 %24
Character & ' ( ) * + , ; =
Percent
Encoded
%26 %27 %28 %29 %2A %2B %2C %3B %3D
Additional Commonly Used Characters and Their Percent Encoding
Character space % < >
Percent
Encoded
%20
(or + allowed)
%25 %3C %3E