What is the best way to handle special characters in URLs

[WebRiverGroup]

What is the best way to handle special characters? We have some URL's that use special characters and when a sitemap is generate using Xenu it changes the characters to something different. Do we need to have physically change the URL back to display the correct character?

Example:

URL:  http://petstreetmall.com/Feeding-&-Watering/361.html

Sitmap Link:  http://www.petstreetmall.com/Feeding-%26-Watering/361.html

[CMC-SD]

As far as "search-engine-spider-stoppers" does this also go for "%" in on-page copy?

[AgentsofValue]

Hi there,

The special characters on your website URL is changed because URLs are sent over the Internet using the ASCII character-set. That's why the & is converted to %26.

If you're trying to make your site rank, it is better to just simplify or shorten the URL. This is because search engines have problems indexing sites when the URLs contain special characters.

The special characters below are known to be "search-engine-spider-stoppers":

• ampersand (&)
• dollar sign ($)
• equals sign (=)
• percent sign (%)
• question mark (?)

Hope that helps!