Google Does Crawl & Index UTF-8 Encoded URLs

Sep 2, 2008 - 7:56 am 2 — by

A Google Groups thread asks if Google can crawl and index UTF-8 encoded URLs. The quick answer is yes, Google can crawl and index these URLs.

Google's JohnMu provided a link to the Google search results as proof, showing Google indexed and displayed the results:

UTF 8 Encoded URLs in Google

John explains that in some cases Google won't crawl them. He recommends "that you also use escaped URLs in your links, to make sure that your site is compatible with older browsers that don't understand straight UTF-8 URLs."

John added that he has seen issues with Google when "the URL uses non-ASCII characters but the server is expecting an encoding other than UTF-8."

There are plenty of URL encoding tools you can use to properly link to UTF-8 encoded URLs.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Google Search Volatility

More Details

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Updates

Google Search Ranking Volatility Gets Heated October 24th

Oct 25, 2026 - 10:07 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: October 23, 2026

Oct 23, 2026 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Chatter, PHP Exploit, AI SEO Worthwhile, Google Local, Google Ads, ChatGPT Ads & More

Oct 23, 2026 - 8:01 am
Google

Google AI Overview Citation Cards With AI-Generated Summary Snippets

Oct 23, 2026 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

JPEG XL Image Format Not Supported By Google Images & Google Discover

Oct 23, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Tests New Advanced Performance Reports

Oct 23, 2026 - 7:31 am
Previous Story: Can Google Win The Browser Wars With Google Chrome?