So maybe you’re not famous enough to get your own Facebook vanity URL like Kevin Rose, U2, alleged girl beater Chris Brown, or even US President Barack Obama……big whoop. Never mind, you can still get a much simpler address than http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=719911306, which makes next to no sense and is pretty well impossible to remember, with your own domain name and a little ol thing called a .htaccess file.
If you’ve already got your own domain name and hosting you’re almost ready to have your own Facebook Vanity URL, all you need to do now is add a sub-domain and a .htaccess file to your hosting server and that’s it. If you don’t have your own domain name, ie. like www.mathewpacker.com, then head on over to GoDaddy and pick one out, register it, and then come on back to this tut.
If your hosting service allows it, go an add a sub domain to your account (you should be able to find documentation at your domain hosting service to show you how to add a sub domain). To keep it easy to remember I’ve added http://facebook.mathewpacker.com to my MediaTemple account. Now that the sub domain is active all I need to do is to add the .htacess file with a little URL rewrite rule in it and voila, I have a very easy to remember Facebook URL.
The htaccess file we’re going to add looks a little like this;
# This allows you to redirect your entire website to any other domain
Redirect 301 / http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=719911306
Open your favourite text editor and paste in that code, just make sure your change the id=719911306 bit to your Facebook ID otherwise you’ll be sending all your friends to my profile….not that they wont thank you for it.. Now when you save the .htaccess file to your new sub domain make sure you name the file .htaccess (the dot is very important!) otherwise it just wont work.
If all has gone well you should now be able to hand out a much easier to remember Facebook URL to all your friends, colleagues, and anyone else you care to tell. Mine is http://facebook.mathewpacker.com if you want to add me to your friend list. You can use this rewrite rule practically anywhere, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, etc.
Once you’ve set your new Facebook Vanity URL up leave me a comment with your new and improved Facebook URL in it.
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Coooool. Now where's that username and password for my hosting server – I can never remember where I put it.
lol.. good one Gordon.
This looks great. Now if I can summon up the nerve to go paddling around in my subdomain…
Let me know if you need a hand with it Lindy.. Good luck!
Clever! and I guess in a way it would work for almost anything… not that I can think of another good use for it at this moment.
New blog design since last time I was here too. Nice one!
You know I thought the exact same thing, but as I worked my way through the social networks I belong to I discovered that it is pretty well only facebook who are restrictive on the vanity url.. Guess they'll eventually release them to the general populous, till then this is an easy work around I think.
Wish there was some way to add some SEO or keywords to it…..hrmmm
Aww tricky! I might do this with my Page… eventually.
Just testing out the new @disqus Twitter commenting on http://www.mathewpacker.com. Looks like it does a top job!
I prefer to use the following
Redirect /facebook http://my facebook profile.url
Redirect /twitter http://www.twitter.com/chrispugh
etc.
http://www.chrispugh.com/facebook
http://www.chrispugh.com/twitter
etc.
isn't that “profile.to” one easier?? just wondering. I've seen some people use it, and i think it's free.
Well yeh it is easier for non-tech people, but ultimately someone else has control over it and if they go out of business or sell your data tough luck.
With the cost of domain names and hosting these days it's pretty inexpensive to set this up, and more importantly from a serious blogger or marketer perspective it has YOUR branding on it, not someone elses..
The only (minor) downside of doing it the way you did is your URLs are case sensitive. If someone puts in chrispugh.com/Facebook or has caps lock on and types CHRISPUGH.COM/FACEBOOK they get an error page.
This is awesome. I did what Chris Pugh suggested and put it after my URL:
http://lindenamueller.com/facebook
I went a little crazy and did this for FB, Twitter (for others, not me–your Twitter profile URL is pretty straightforward), Diigo, Picasa, and Flickr. It's so easy! My host (PowWeb) has a great .htaccess editor, so I could do it all from the web interface–no FTP required. Thanks, Mat! (I added you on FB.)
This is an AWESOME tip Matt!!
Turns out it is possible to have 3 and 4 letter usernames on Facebook. Not to sure if this is a bug or a easter egg or whether they intend to stop it but if you are still looking for a username why not grab a 3 letter for bragging rights
http://blackhat.me/3_letter_username_facebook/
Turns out it is possible to have 3 and 4 letter usernames on Facebook. Not to sure if this is a bug or a easter egg or whether they intend to stop it but if you are still looking for a username why not grab a 3 letter for bragging rights
http://blackhat.me/3_letter_username_facebook/