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A
AK5
Level 2
July 6, 2026
Question

Semicolon in URL

  • July 6, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 9 views

Hi there, i have a few URLs that contains semicolon “:” - example below, and upon clicking on the test proofs i received, the semicolon turns into %3A. Is this normal and any documentation i can show to support?

https://www.test/?test=te:st:TeST:edm::test&utm_source=&utm_medium=edm&utm_campaign=test

Thanks!

    1 reply

    Pulkit_Jain_
    Adobe Employee
    Pulkit_Jain_Adobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    July 6, 2026

    ​@AK5 

    Yes, this is normal and expected behavior.

    %3A is the URL-encoded version of the colon character : per the standard URL specification: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3986#section-2.1

    So: test=te:st becomes test=te%3Ast. Both URLs are functionally equivalent, more information here- https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/journey-optimizer/using/channels/email/deeplinks#:~:text=Check%20URL%20encoding%3A%20reserved%20characters%20should%20be%20URL%2Dencoded. 

    A
    AK5Author
    Level 2
    July 6, 2026

    Hi ​@Pulkit_Jain_ , greatly appreciate the prompt reply.

    So with the transformation, the tracking won’t work as per expected? And we should refrain from using semicolons and other reserved characters as you’ve kindly shared the datatracker link.

    Thanks!

    Pulkit_Jain_
    Adobe Employee
    Pulkit_Jain_Adobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    July 6, 2026

    ​@AK5 URL encoding itself shouldn’t break tracking.

    Converting reserved characters is a standard behavior and in most cases, tracking should still work correctly because the browser decodes the value automatically.

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