@ sign as url parameter separator?

Question

While browsing the new Google Maps I saw that they are using an @ sign instead of ? to seperate the url-path from the query parameters, like:

The coordinates after the @ change as you are navigating around the map, but without a browser refresh. Bookmarking works fine with this.

Wikipedia does not mention anything about this, RFC3986 only shows the @ sign as a possibility for username/password authentication.

Is this a standardised feature or a proprietary browser functionality? Is this feature safe to use, and how do I use it correctly?

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:28:44Z

@38.1158476,-96.2044115,6z is not the query component. It’s still part of the path component.

So from the URI standard perspective, there is nothing special about this URI. There could have been used any other (or no) character instead.

I assume Google uses the @ here because users might read it as "at", which is suitable for "at <location>".

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