title: What do % signs mean in a url?
body: <p>When I copy paste this Wikipedia article it looks like this.</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruy%C3%A8re_%28cheese%29" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruy%C3%A8re_%28cheese%29</a></p>
  
  <p>However if you paste this back into the URL address the percent signs disappear and what appears to be Unicode characters ( and maybe special URL characters ) take the place of the percent signs.</p>
  
  <p>Are these abbreviations for Unicode and special URL characters?</p>
  
  <p>I'm use to seeing \u00ff, etc. in JavaScript.</p>