URL contains special characters: what it is, why it matters, and how to fix it

This URL contains special characters (such as spaces, brackets, pipes, or other non-standard characters) that require percent-encoding. These make URLs harder to read and share.

Special characters in URLs get percent-encoded (e.g., space becomes %20), making URLs ugly and difficult to share. Some older systems and crawlers may have trouble with encoded URLs. Clean, readable URLs are preferred by both users and search engines for clarity and trust.

Remove special characters from URLs. Use only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens in URL paths. Set up 301 redirects from the old URLs to clean versions.

This is a low-severity issue: a polish item. Fix it in batches during scheduled maintenance; the win is cumulative quality, not a step change. It belongs to the crawlability family of checks.

Run a free Dr Urls audit: it crawls your site, detects url contains special characters on every affected page, shows example URLs, and generates a ready-to-use fix task. Re-scan after fixing to verify the issue is gone.