How To Get A Personalized URL For Your Facebook Page (or Profile)

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Default Facebook Links Are Hard To Remember
But There Is An Easier Way…

Have you ever tried to direct your friends to your new fan page and gotten tongue-tied on the URL?

Frankly, Facebook default URLs are a mouthful!

You know… like this…

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Harsh-Agrawal/142347699123049

See?  dub dub dub dot Facebook dot com slash pages slash Harsh slash alphabet soup!

Totally not sexy!

It used to be that the only solution was to use a third-party Facebook application such as “Web Addresses“, a shortening application like bit.ly, or a redirected subdomain such as http://facebook.shoutmeloud.com to make them easier to remember!

Fortunately Facebook’s implementation of “UserNames” which work for profiles (with no friend restriction) and pages (with a minimum of 25 fans) comes to the rescue! (Groups, which lack access to any advanced application tools even with the recent changes to groups, can not do this.)

Once you have the required 25 fans for your Page;

Go to Facebook Username Page. (http://facebook.com/username)

Click on Set a UserName for your pages.

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Select the Page you want to customize and type the custom short name in the box.

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Read and confirm the disclaimer that pops up and you’re done!

Make Note Of These Things

  • Similar to Page titles, the UserName can only ever be set once (not changeable)
  • Periods have no real meaning once set ( /harsh.agrawal and /harshagrawal and /har.sh.agr.awal all redirect the same)
  • Periods make nice spacers for readability (/Ask.Kim is more readable than /AskKim and they result in the same thing)
  • Page can not have UserName already in use by your page or another user.
  • Profiles can also have a UserName, with no waiting to have enough friends, but like Pages can only be set once ever.
  • Might write down the old URL since the numeric string is the page ID number and needed for certain things. It also is a link that will continue to work even on days that Facebook’s redirects are not functioning right.

So Now…

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Harsh-Agrawal/142347699123049

  • maybe be: http://facebook.com/Pro.Blogger.Harsh
  • or maybe… : http://facebook.com/HarshIsTooSexyForProBlogging
  • or how about… : http://facebook.com/HarshProBloggerExtraordinaire
  • or maybe even… : http://facebook.com/HarshRocks !

LOL! Just having some fun but you get my point! MUCH easier to remember aren’t they?

Now we just need to see which one Harsh picks!

Do you have a UserName for your Page or Profile?

Look forward to your comments and shares! See you in the comments below!

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Authored By
Kimberly is 29 year old female from Southern Illinois. Backgrounds in IT, small business & social media, she is passionate about helping small businesses succeed in social media. She blogs on countless social media, Wordpress and Facebook marketing tips and tricks! If you're looking for advice on social media... Just Ask Kim!

38 thoughts on “How To Get A Personalized URL For Your Facebook Page (or Profile)”

  1. VIvek R Varma

    Very well defined. Thank you for this valuable posting

  2. Ileane

    Hi Kim, I can really use the link you shared. I’m building a fan page at work and it’s really cool to find these neat little tricks as I go along. We have 5,000 students that we will promote the page too and I assume many of them will like the page right away. After reading this, I got the idea to promote the page to a few hundred students first, then once we get the 25 fans and change the URL, we can use the custom URL in the more widespread promotion. Thanks for giving me the idea Kim. You’re such an inspiration.

  3. S.Pradeep Kumar

    Vanity URL is the best way to brand yourself!!

    And we should also be picky while choosing one, nice share there Kim. 🙂

  4. Kimberly

    Thanks Zeeshan, your welcome even though you knew it already LOL 🙂
    Kimberly

  5. Tech Maish

    Kimberly@ Thanks for providing this tutorial. Newbies were not able to do this, i am sure now they will create a professional URL for there facebook page.

    1. Kimberly

      Thanks Tech Maish, that’s really what it was geared for – someone that has put up their first page or two and doesn’t know how to customize it (or maybe even what to search for). Its not really the most intuitive process. Thanks again!
      Kimberly

  6. Jesse Dictor

    I am gonna try this right away- seems like a neat idea. Specially if I can customize it more

    1. Kimberly

      Hey Jesse, yeah you can get the link fairly well customized with no trouble. It’s really a nice way to improve our branding and make it much easier to remember. Give me a shout if you have any trouble happy to answer questions!
      Kimberly

  7. Uttoran Sen

    did that some time before, the short and brandable url helps to get more fans as well.

    Also, just spotted, i see a delicious vote count button on the top, how did you do it? please let me know, thanks 🙂

    regards,
    uttoransen,

    1. Kimberly Castleberry

      Uttoren, all of Harsh’s buttons are php/css additions to the theme – rather than a plugin. Almost all of the button providers give us the code for these. I’m not sure exactly where the code for that particular button is though. I havent looked too deeply but I found these: http://www.delicious.com/help/savebuttons Maybe those will help?
      Thanks Uttoran!
      Kimberly

      1. Uttoran Sen

        nah, those counters don’t show the number of votes on the buttons… i guess only harsh will be able to tell,

  8. Mani Viswanathan

    I did that as soon as I had 25 fans 😛

    1. Kimberly Castleberry

      Have I fanned your page yet? Not sure I’ve seen the link to it – be sure you get to me cuz I’m definitely your fan Mani!
      Kimberly

      1. Mani Viswanathan

        Thanks for that kim. You can like it @ http://www.facebook.com/DailyBlogging

        P.S. I meant 25 likes 😛 (I don’t maintain a fan page. Probably I’m not that big. But I have gone one dear friend in the your form 🙂 )

  9. Bhaveek

    Kim thanks for this explanation, I have google this topic many times but always got outdated result, but your explanation seems to be user friendly to a non technical guy like me.
    anyway kim thanks for sharing this post.

    1. Kimberly Castleberry

      Thanks Bhaveek, thats why I wrote it and I’m thrilled it helped you! I haven’t done much guest blogging yet and I really appreciate your feedback. If you have any questions, please just ask 🙂
      Kimberly

  10. himans

    well explained Kimberly but this feature is available since a long a time.

    1. Kimberly

      Thanks himans, yes it is not new. However because its not intuitive or easy to find on facebook a lot of people still don’t know where its at. This is mostly to help the beginner 🙂 Thanks!
      Kimberly

  11. Sathish @ TechieMania

    Hey Kimberly, This will be really good if you want to keep your name a brand. Anyways thanks for sharing this stuff.

    1. Kimberly

      Hey Sathish, definitely! Name branding today is powerful. Name recognition means a lot online and this gives us one more way to do just that! Thanks for the comment!
      Kimberly

  12. Mosarrof

    i know this already but need to say that in this article you are introduced very nice. I mean it will very helpful for beginners.

    1. Kimberly

      Thank you Mosarrof, I appreciate the feedback. That’s really who it is aimed at because it stumps a lot of facebook beginners and I wanted to help them find it easier. Thank you for commenting!
      Kimberly

  13. Kimberly

    Thanks Kbharath, glad you got what you were looking for! Its one of those not-so-obvious things!
    Kimberly

      1. Harsh Agrawal

        Rahul I don’t think it’s possible..!!

      2. Kimberly

        The only solution I can think of – and it would be terribly ugly/complicated – would (assuming those two names are not yet taken) – to create a pair of facebook applications, with those names, and write some code that made them redirect to the one you want them to point. But .. seriously.. that would be a really non-elegant solution. Generally speaking, in a practical or easy to use manner, this just isn’t possible. Facebook does not allow us to manipulate their domains with much flexibility.
        Kimberly

  14. Praveen-Techperk

    i know this already 🙂 if you do this once then you cannot change it

    1. Kimberly

      Yup the lack of being able to change it (or the page title) is somewhat annoying at times! Thanks for commenting!
      Kimberly

  15. Harsh

    I already have usernames for my profile and page. BTW nice info. 🙂

    1. Kimberly

      Thanks for stopping in and commenting Harsh, appreciate the feedback 🙂
      Kimberly

  16. Jens P. Berget

    Great tutorial. I have done this for one of my pages. I’m not sure if people go directly to my page using the url, but it looks a lot better than the long and ugly one 🙂

  17. Tanveer

    @Kimberly:
    Any idea Kimberly why facebook have not given an option to choose a username at the sign up time??

    There are other social networking and other sites which gives option to choose a username when creating a new account at the site but facebook is the only site which gives different option to choose a username and that to not so easy to the normal users to set username to their profile.

    I would love to know if there is any reason behind that.

    Thanks

    1. Kimberly

      Tanverr, my best guess is because username was a “bolt on” feature after the fact. They really want us engaging in our actual names (as spelled out pretty loudly in the TOS) and do everything they can to minimize the use of usernames. Even in this case the username is nothing more than a “custom url” and is used no where else on the site. Also, since profiles can own pages and a page can have a username, some individuals – using the same email – have multiple usernames. They just don’t function on facebook in the usual way we think of them working. Facebook has worked incredibly hard to keep personal profiles as “us” as possible, keep businesses off of profiles, and generally prevent abstraction. That’s really my best guess. I don’t think we’ll ever see a day that usernames become much more significant with Facebook.

      Thanks for the comment Tanveer! Appreciate it!
      Kimberly

      1. Tanveer

        @Kimberly:
        Hmmmmm thanks for your reply Kimberly.

        @All:
        And even you can set username for your applications on facebook by following above steps.

        Once again thanks for your reply Kimberly!

        1. Kimberly

          I should have mentioned that – you are right! About the only thing it doesn’t work for is Groups and Events which I doubt it ever will but FB has surprised us before! Hope you’re having a great day!
          Kimberly

  18. Jaydip Parikh

    Wonderful article, I wrote on same topic few days back on other blog. What a co incident.

    1. Kimberly

      Thanks Jaydip, gotta love happy coincidences! It’s a great topic because Facebook isn’t real clear about it. Thanks for commenting!
      Kimberly

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