Will You Grab Your Facebook “Vanity” URL?

by Christine on June 11, 2009

in Social Media

FacebookSo it’s been a rumor for a while now, but Facebook has finally said that they will be allowing people to secure their Facebook username URL beginning tomorrow, 6/13 at 12:01 am EST.

Basically, current Facebook URLs are long, ugly strings ending in random numbers. (ex: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pr…p?id=745339045)

This change allows you to change it to something simpler and more identifiable. (ex: http://www.facebook.com/james)

You will be able to do this for your personal profile as well as your Fan Page. (With a few caveats–see the Facebook blog post about the URLs for more details.)

It’s thought that this is good from a “findability” and branding perspective–as well as having possible positive search engine optimization implications.

Do you have any thoughts? If you’re on Facebook, will you be taking advantage of this?

Photo Credit: pc-loadletter

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{ 2 trackbacks }

Will You Grab Your Facebook "Vanity" URL? - Search Engine Optimization
June 11, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Facebook Raises Limit for Fan Page Vanity URLs Without Explanation
June 28, 2009 at 11:32 pm

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Kevin Kute June 11, 2009 at 7:58 pm

From the comments I have seen from the Facebook blogs, there seems to be more nays than yays. You mentioned about possible positive SEO implications. I don’t know that Joe the Plumber would necessarily want his page found that easily. I do understand the positives for business minded individuals like yourself and I but more often than not it’s my Twitter feed that ranks when i perform a search. As far getting one come game time, I see major problems connnecting to the server and even worse a “John Smith” trying to get his….imagine how many are out there that go by such common names.
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J.D. June 12, 2009 at 2:32 am

I’m a fan of simplicity and I always like simpler urls. They make things more human.
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Anthony Verna June 16, 2009 at 2:44 pm

I have it for my personal page. The business pages aren’t opened up yet unless you had 1,000 fans (sheesh) on a cut-off date. I’ll get it for the business page, too. I don’t really think there are that many SEO implications, but I think it’ll be easy to find the page and to give the URL to people.
Anthony Verna´s last blog ..Why Register? My ComLuv Profile

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Christine June 21, 2009 at 8:53 pm

@Kevin–Curious why you think Joe the Plumber wouldn’t want to be found?

@J.D.–I agree with you. Who wants to be just a number anyway?

@Anthony–Good news is the 1000 fan limit for Fan Pages is being lifted June 28th. I also like the fact you can more easily give the URL.

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