Facebook Frenzy over Vanity URLs
As with anything to do with securing the highest SEO advantage possible amongst the hoardes of fiercely competitive online reputatyion junkies, there was an inevitable frenzy a-brewin' when Facebook decided to release it's long-time coming 'vanity URL' option. And for those who haven't heard about it yet, you can now customize your Facebook profile domain name in classic Myspace fashion. But get in quick though, as the most popular URLs are being torn away from the existing list of vacant domain names. But seeing as I'm writing this blog on the 15th, and this information actually went live on the 12th the odds are that you probably aren't going to get the custom domain that you desire.
There is however, like any other site that has allowed personal URL customization, an inherent flaw in the ways of which Facebook conducted this exercise. When it comes to the domain name game (hey, that rhymes), there is always a dogfight between large businesses and quick-witted geeks who make it their life's work to secure business domain names only to sell it back to the companies at triple the price. Facebook hasn't exactly taken steps to avoid this sort of conflict. How, do you ask?
Simple. As Facebook doesn't allow businesses to register as normal users, they instead register Facebook fan pages. Upon the release of the Facebook vanity URL, there was some heavy restrictions imposed on businesses seeking a custom URL for their fan page. To be applicable, it is a prerequisite for businesses to have an existing page before the cut-off date of May 31, 2009 with a minimum number of 1,000 'fans'. Also, if you wanted the URL so badly you had to reserve it - which involves a fee, of course. So if you didn't reserve your custom Vanity URL in the name of your business, then it's highly likeyl that some geezer has created a normal Facebook account with a fake name in order to swipe any business URL left in limbo. You can read more info here: http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/462/the-facebook-vanity-url-fiasco
I'm all for the use of vanity URLs, but I think that Facebook (the social networking mogul) should have put more thought into the release of these free custom domains to its +200 million users globally. What do you think?
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