What is URL Encoding?

URL encoding (percent-encoding) converts characters into a format safe for use in URLs. Reserved and non-ASCII characters are replaced by % followed by two hexadecimal digits (e.g., space becomes %20). The plus sign (+) traditionally represents space in query strings. URL encoding is used when passing parameters, building query strings, or including special characters in paths. Decoding reverses the process. Browsers and servers handle encoding automatically, but manual encoding is needed when constructing URLs programmatically.