Space in URLs displayed in SERP

Is this new?

[takagi]

Recently I noticed some URLs have a space in the SERP.

For example, you look for all the members of WW and search in google for:

site:www.webmasterworld.com inurl:member

you can see a space in the URL between the domain and the first subdirectory ("www.webmasterworld.com/ viewprofile.cgi..."). When hovering with the mouse over the link, the URL displayed in the status bar doesn't have this space.

Why is there is space? Is this new?

[korkus2000]

I have seen it for a couple of months. Like you I was worried they had indexed a 404, but I have not seen any problems from it.

[Brett_Tabke]

It causes:

a) wordwrap on the long urls. Thus, those will small screens don't have to scroll right on serps.
b) stops some screen scrapers extra work to parse the content.

Which is the real reason? Who knows, but they are both good ones.