Can we use & in url?

Question

Can we use "&" in a url ? or should "and" be used?

Answer 1

Yes, you can use it plain in your URL path like this:

http://example.com/Alice&Bob

Only if you want to use it in the query you need to encode it with %26:

http://example.com/?arg=Alice%26Bob

Otherwise it would be interpreted as argument separator when interpreted as application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

See RFC 3986 for more details.

Answer 2

An URL is generally in the form

scheme://host/some/path/to/file?query1=value&query2=value

So it is not advisable to use it in an URL unless you want to use it for parameters. Otherwise you should percent escape it using %26, e.g.

http://www.example.com/hello%26world

This results in the path being submitted as hello&world. There are other characters which must be escaped when used out of context in an URL. See here for a list.