Within the @Controller of a search engine: @RequestMapping(value = "/search/{query}", method = RequestMethod.GET) public String search(@PathVariable String query) {} If a user wants to search /search/w?rld (wich should match world, warld, whrld, etc.), the variable query equals w, because of the question mark which indicated a GET var. I tried "/search/{query:.+}", but still doesn't work. Any idea how to solve that problem?