Google has signalled that URLs using raw square brackets and URLs using percent-encoded brackets may be crawled as separate URLs. The point, highlighted in comments attributed to Google Search Advocate John Mueller and reported by Search Engine Journal, is a technical SEO issue rather than a broad algorithm change. However, for companies that rely on organic search traffic, inconsistent URL formatting can create avoidable crawling and indexing inefficiencies.

What happened

According to the report, Google treats raw brackets and encoded brackets as different URLs. In practice, that means a page address containing square brackets directly and the equivalent address using percent-encoding may be seen as two separate locations unless a site handles them consistently.

The recommendation reported from Google is to use one version consistently across:

• internal links
• canonical tags
• sitemaps

This is not a new law or regulatory requirement. It is operational guidance related to how Google crawls and interprets web addresses.

Why it matters for European businesses

For many SMEs, e-commerce sites and content publishers, technical SEO problems are often not caused by rankings alone but by inconsistent website signals. If a site exposes multiple URL variants for the same page, Google may spend crawl resources on duplicate paths, split signals between versions, or create confusion around the preferred canonical page.

That can matter in several business situations:

• E-commerce platforms with faceted navigation, filtered category pages or product URLs that generate special characters.
• Marketing websites where CMS plugins, tracking tools or manual linking produce inconsistent URL formats.
• Large content sites that depend on clean indexing and efficient crawling to keep new pages visible in search.
• International or multilingual websites where technical duplication issues can become harder to diagnose across markets.

For smaller businesses, the impact may not be dramatic on every site, but inconsistent URL handling can still weaken SEO performance over time, especially when combined with other duplication issues.

Who may be affected

The issue is most relevant for businesses and teams responsible for websites that generate dynamic URLs or manage large numbers of pages.

• SEO teams and digital agencies managing technical site health
• Developers responsible for routing, URL generation and redirects
• E-commerce businesses using filters, variants or parameter-heavy navigation
• Marketing teams publishing content through CMS environments that may create inconsistent links
• IT and web operations teams maintaining sitemap generation and canonical implementation

Sites that never use such characters in URLs may see little or no direct impact from this specific issue.

What companies should consider

Businesses do not need to redesign their websites purely because of this report, but they should check whether the same content is accessible through more than one bracket format.

• Review internal links to confirm they use a single URL format consistently.
• Check canonical tags to ensure they always point to the preferred version.
• Verify XML sitemaps list only the chosen version of each URL.
• Test whether the server, CMS or application framework exposes raw and encoded variants separately.
• Consider redirect rules or normalisation logic if duplicate versions are accessible.
• Include URL-format checks in technical SEO audits, especially after migrations or platform changes.

For companies working with agencies or development partners, this is a useful reminder that small URL-format differences can have search implications. The main practical takeaway is consistency: if one format is used across linking, canonicals and sitemaps, the risk of duplication and crawl waste is lower.