Breaking: Facebook Asks Users If They’ll Pay For Vanity URLs

-Facebook Vanity URL Screenshot- As Facebook searches for ways to increase their revenue, some users are being asked if they are willing to pay for vanity URLs. For those unaware of what vanity URLs are, they are the short strings that follow “facebook.com”. For example, the AllFacebook.com public profile has a short URL which is “http://www.facebook.com/allfacebook”. A number of celebrities and high profile individuals have been granted profile URLs for free as a way to encourage them to update their Facebook public profiles more regularly.

Other users have been regularly asking for shorter versions for their public profiles. It appears that Facebook has been listening and is now considering setting up a market for short URLs. Every day I personally receive a number of inquiries from individuals asking how to get a short URL for their public profile. So far Facebook hasn’t let users do anything about it although there have been rumors that they were considering let individuals purchase URLs.

This could theoretically be a huge business in that URLs could go through a bidding process. Want to get the URL http://www.facebook.com/shoes? You better be willing to bid against companies like Zappos, who I’m sure would be willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you’d like your own username, that would obviously be substantially cheaper.

Companies like Twitter have decided to make it a free-for-all when it comes to usernames but that has regularly proven to be ineffective. Many individuals end up squatting on usernames. Others like the CNNbrk account, decide that they will use another person’s brand name to generate buzz and attract users. In the case of the CNNbrk account, CNN.com ended up acquiring it but that is a rare example.

Facebook could theoretically make millions if people were willing to pay for their short URLs. I know that every business would be dying to get their own vanity URL. Would you be willing to pay? How much would you spend?

Thanks to Jason McGowan for giving us the heads up about this!

-Short Facebook URLs-

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532834 Comments2009-04-22+23%3A44%3A19Nick+O%27Neill »

I'd pay a small one time fee for a vanity URL, but certainly not a subscription or a large fee.

Comment by Ilya Yakubovich — April 22, 2009 @ 3:54 pm
I think this is a great idea from the Facebook team! I would totally pay for a vanity URL! I think Facebook would make a ton of money on it.

Comment by Jason McGowan — April 22, 2009 @ 3:57 pm
While I would certainly pay for SOME features on Facebook. This is not one of them. Plus we should already have them anyways since it benefits Facebook in SEO.

You get them free on MySpace :/

Comment by Chad Boyda — April 22, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
I think it would certainly depend on the popularity of those addresses. If you look at how domains have been sold over the years some are bought and resold for a higher price and others just sit their for years unused becuase no one is interested. I'm sure that Facebook vanity urls would succom to this as well.

Comment by Groundswell — April 22, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
If Facebook charged for the privilege to have easy to find short url for Public Profiles (and Profiles) as long as Facebook do not decide that adomain.com/facebook is a circumvention of trademark/ copyright of the word 'Facebook' or any other Facebook brands or if they seen it as trying to bypass or a 'harm' to there paid service then obviously adding FB/ Facebook is going to be the prefered way if already has an online identity which 3rd parties can promote as more rememberable.

Comment by Jamie Ellis — April 22, 2009 @ 4:45 pm
Not until Facebook opens up to those not logged in.

If you are not a member of Facebook, you can't see the content.

A vanity URL is good branding, but I won't pay until my content can be seen by anyone on the web, not just people who are logged in.

Comment by Sharon — April 22, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
Great scoop, Nick! I agree with Stew- and it's interesting they polled everyday users- as I don't think that's where the real $ is. Some may do it, many won't – but it's the Public Profiles that would pay- especially companies wanting to own their name and/or category.

Not sure how each would work though- right now, a company can't "buy" the Public Profile for Chocolate Chip Cookies or Sleeping – and there's unarguably way more value in these pre-built-with-fans-Pages than in facebook.com/sleeping with no fans yet.

And wouldn't Coca Cola be the only company that could legally bid on facebook.com/cocacola etc.?

Comment by Dave Kerpen — April 22, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
I understand that everyone wants a vanity url but why pay for it. For a site I am involved in we just used a little outside of the box thinking. We redirected http://herhotspot.com/facebook to go to our fan page. It is just as easy as the vanity url we would have wanted from Facebook and gives our site top billing. Thoughts?

Comment by Facebook User — April 22, 2009 @ 7:47 pm
I’m with Ilya. I’d pay a one-time nominal fee of maybe $20. I might even go for a yearly subscription if it were like $1. Wouldn’t pay much more.

Comment by Jim Burnell — April 22, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
I'd pay something to increase my online identity. For sure.

Comment by Blake Jordan Ayers — April 22, 2009 @ 8:05 pm
I would pay for a premium fb profile with vanity url & no limit of contacts. Around the same price I pay for a premium flickr account

Comment by Kaysha Edward MrShad — April 22, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
It would have to be dirt cheap for everyday people.

Frankly, I don’t see a use for it.

I have my vanity domain. I have my vanity page on Facebook. I’ve tied the two together with fConnect. I’m not willing to pay for my personal profile on Facebook to have a vanity name that can just use modRewrite to mask the thing in the first place. In that regard, it’s a money grab at the expense of less experienced or savvy users.

For companies, celebs, brands, etc, fine. Let then have at it. The vast majority are the everyday users. Charge them a a buck or two and maybe it will fly. Allow complete MX and name control and we have a different situation altogether. Although I don’t see that happening, ever. Even then, it’s a level of complexity that the everyday user won’t grasp, nevermind celebs, news media anchors, etc.

No, I will not pay for any such service when there are so many alternatives with tighter control and granular management.

Will it have the potential to reach a huge segment? Yes. Is it marketable. Definitely.

I agree that it would be a huge business in that URLs could go through a bidding process, for those with the clout and backing to do so.

On ownership issues, Coca-Cola can ensure this will avoid squatters and the like, however, they’ve embraced the Social aspect of advertising in letting it’s own consumers be fans and run fan pages.

It’s win win for companies no matter that the option is, so long as they themselves pick up their collective socks and get with the Social Times ‘-)

In the end, it’s a cash grab that might generate a bit of income for Facebook however I don’t think it will be the bread and butter of the company. They need to get a little more inventive then this.

Comment by Stew Brennand Jr — April 22, 2009 @ 8:13 pm
I would definitely pay for it. Even though it’s something that you get for free on other services (like Twitter and Last.fm), Facebook has become your main Internet identity and I’d pay for that text vanity plate.

Comment by DC — April 22, 2009 @ 8:20 pm
I agree its a possible cash grab, but there might be value in it for companies/brands as consumers just start to get used to adding a companies name after twitter.com/

They will likely start to do this with facebook, you can redirect current domains to your facebook page, but if the consumer types in http://www.facebook.com/coke…. wouldn’t you prefer if you had this in place and not lose those potential facebook fans. You could use your domain redirect to also point to http://www.facebook.com/coke….

Comment by david — April 22, 2009 @ 8:26 pm
I’d pay for the ability to get the old UI back.

Comment by Joshua Fingold — April 22, 2009 @ 10:18 pm
Bah – this could mark the beginning of the end for FB.

Comment by Josh — April 23, 2009 @ 1:34 am
Anyone with a domain can just set up http://www.mycompany.com/fb or /facebook to redirect to their facebook page.

I certainly wouldn’t pay for it, FB differentiated itself by forcing use of your real name, now they want to flip flop to a screen name? Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Comment by That'sdumb! — April 23, 2009 @ 2:17 am
I see a need for a vanity URL for a blog, but not for Facebook when your name is all over your page. I could see how they would make a ton of money from people who think they need a vanity URL, however, I would not pay for one.

Comment by Kellee — April 23, 2009 @ 2:21 am
Facebook is a dying galaxy. I only use it because some of my family and friends are there but many other contacts that are registered there hardly use it at all anymore and, like me, just go there to keep things aligned and consistent with other social media sites they are using. They should sell vanity urls because I think in the future connecting with the organization pages and the vanity users will be the only reason anyone goes there.

Comment by Nicholas Nayme — April 23, 2009 @ 2:24 am
No way I would pay for that, UNLESS it was on behalf of a business or promotional effort.

What if Facebook connected us to everything? http://bit.ly/fbconnected

Comment by jestebanc — April 23, 2009 @ 2:28 am
@Nicholas, Yep … Facebook got rid of polls for users and only has them as engagement ads but this isn't an engagement ad.

Comment by Nick ONeill — April 23, 2009 @ 5:03 am
I’d be happy to pay for a vanity URL for a small one-time fee. I don’t want a fwd either, but something that would rank in the SERPs for the url/name/keyword/name

Comment by Chuck Reynolds — April 23, 2009 @ 7:11 am
Are you sure that’s a Facebook poll?

Comment by Nicholas Carlson — April 23, 2009 @ 7:27 am
i would pay $20 for a vanity URL with my name.

And of course MySpace gives them away for free. But then you'd have to be on myspace

Re: increasing FB SEO – I think they're alright in that dept

Comment by Rick — April 23, 2009 @ 8:04 am
What is the justification for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for “/shoes”.

Any thought behind those numbers?

Comment by Jason Keath — April 23, 2009 @ 8:42 am
Why should we pay for it whereas so many services offer it for free? I start being a bit tired of the doulbe language of FB: we listen to our user (officially) but we do not adopt a nice conduct towards them.

Comment by Guillaume — April 23, 2009 @ 9:43 am
No, I wouldn’t pay for it. And Myspace allows you to craft your URL address for free.

But, I’m not a celebrity (yet!) nor am I a business, and as a regular individual I just don’t care enough to make it worth the money. I’m searchable by name through Facebook, and I keep it private from google. Who cares if my name trails the URL or not? As someone else pointed it, it’s already all over the page itself anyway.

Comment by Jody — April 23, 2009 @ 10:57 am
Considering the completely unproven long term nature of any social media site – no commercial enterprise should ever bind their identity to a facebook.com URL.

Use redirects from your own domain to the facebook.com URLs as suggested by many above already.

(no relation to Nick, unless, of course, he is some love child I am unaware)

Comment by Michael O'Neill — April 23, 2009 @ 11:51 am
Why do celebrities get it for free and we the common people have to pay for it? Doesn’t it hint off “discrimination” at worst and “favoritism” at best? Facebook, if I were you, I won’t go near there.

Comment by HSW — April 23, 2009 @ 12:14 pm
@Nick, Facebook confirmed the poll was theirs

Comment by Nicholas Carlson — April 23, 2009 @ 12:42 pm
What makes you think facebook sponsored that poll?

Comment by Facebook User — April 23, 2009 @ 10:07 pm
well even if they charged 50p, they'd make loads of money

Comment by b ri — May 13, 2009 @ 6:53 am
I don't think I'd pay for it. I also just set up a redirect to create my own facebook url, easy enough and it's free!

Comment by Holly Hopper — June 11, 2009 @ 7:17 am
I would pay for an address, just bypass the 1000 fan rule!

Comment by mr exchange server — June 11, 2009 @ 5:50 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

I'd pay a small one time fee for a vanity URL, but certainly not a subscription or a large fee.

Comment by Ilya Yakubovich — April 22, 2009 @ 3:54 pm

I think this is a great idea from the Facebook team! I would totally pay for a vanity URL! I think Facebook would make a ton of money on it.

Comment by Jason McGowan — April 22, 2009 @ 3:57 pm

While I would certainly pay for SOME features on Facebook. This is not one of them. Plus we should already have them anyways since it benefits Facebook in SEO.

You get them free on MySpace :/

Comment by Chad Boyda — April 22, 2009 @ 3:59 pm

I think it would certainly depend on the popularity of those addresses. If you look at how domains have been sold over the years some are bought and resold for a higher price and others just sit their for years unused becuase no one is interested. I'm sure that Facebook vanity urls would succom to this as well.

Comment by Groundswell — April 22, 2009 @ 4:00 pm

If Facebook charged for the privilege to have easy to find short url for Public Profiles (and Profiles) as long as Facebook do not decide that adomain.com/facebook is a circumvention of trademark/ copyright of the word 'Facebook' or any other Facebook brands or if they seen it as trying to bypass or a 'harm' to there paid service then obviously adding FB/ Facebook is going to be the prefered way if already has an online identity which 3rd parties can promote as more rememberable.

Comment by Jamie Ellis — April 22, 2009 @ 4:45 pm

Not until Facebook opens up to those not logged in.

If you are not a member of Facebook, you can't see the content.

A vanity URL is good branding, but I won't pay until my content can be seen by anyone on the web, not just people who are logged in.

Comment by Sharon — April 22, 2009 @ 4:47 pm

Great scoop, Nick! I agree with Stew- and it's interesting they polled everyday users- as I don't think that's where the real $ is. Some may do it, many won't – but it's the Public Profiles that would pay- especially companies wanting to own their name and/or category.

Not sure how each would work though- right now, a company can't "buy" the Public Profile for Chocolate Chip Cookies or Sleeping – and there's unarguably way more value in these pre-built-with-fans-Pages than in facebook.com/sleeping with no fans yet.

And wouldn't Coca Cola be the only company that could legally bid on facebook.com/cocacola etc.?

Comment by Dave Kerpen — April 22, 2009 @ 5:50 pm

I understand that everyone wants a vanity url but why pay for it. For a site I am involved in we just used a little outside of the box thinking. We redirected http://herhotspot.com/facebook to go to our fan page. It is just as easy as the vanity url we would have wanted from Facebook and gives our site top billing. Thoughts?

Comment by Facebook User — April 22, 2009 @ 7:47 pm

I’m with Ilya. I’d pay a one-time nominal fee of maybe $20. I might even go for a yearly subscription if it were like $1. Wouldn’t pay much more.

Comment by Jim Burnell — April 22, 2009 @ 8:00 pm

I'd pay something to increase my online identity. For sure.

Comment by Blake Jordan Ayers — April 22, 2009 @ 8:05 pm

I would pay for a premium fb profile with vanity url & no limit of contacts. Around the same price I pay for a premium flickr account

Comment by Kaysha Edward MrShad — April 22, 2009 @ 8:11 pm

It would have to be dirt cheap for everyday people.

Frankly, I don’t see a use for it.

I have my vanity domain. I have my vanity page on Facebook. I’ve tied the two together with fConnect. I’m not willing to pay for my personal profile on Facebook to have a vanity name that can just use modRewrite to mask the thing in the first place. In that regard, it’s a money grab at the expense of less experienced or savvy users.

For companies, celebs, brands, etc, fine. Let then have at it. The vast majority are the everyday users. Charge them a a buck or two and maybe it will fly. Allow complete MX and name control and we have a different situation altogether. Although I don’t see that happening, ever. Even then, it’s a level of complexity that the everyday user won’t grasp, nevermind celebs, news media anchors, etc.

No, I will not pay for any such service when there are so many alternatives with tighter control and granular management.

Will it have the potential to reach a huge segment? Yes. Is it marketable. Definitely.

I agree that it would be a huge business in that URLs could go through a bidding process, for those with the clout and backing to do so.

On ownership issues, Coca-Cola can ensure this will avoid squatters and the like, however, they’ve embraced the Social aspect of advertising in letting it’s own consumers be fans and run fan pages.

It’s win win for companies no matter that the option is, so long as they themselves pick up their collective socks and get with the Social Times ‘-)

In the end, it’s a cash grab that might generate a bit of income for Facebook however I don’t think it will be the bread and butter of the company. They need to get a little more inventive then this.

Comment by Stew Brennand Jr — April 22, 2009 @ 8:13 pm

I would definitely pay for it. Even though it’s something that you get for free on other services (like Twitter and Last.fm), Facebook has become your main Internet identity and I’d pay for that text vanity plate.

Comment by DC — April 22, 2009 @ 8:20 pm

I agree its a possible cash grab, but there might be value in it for companies/brands as consumers just start to get used to adding a companies name after twitter.com/

They will likely start to do this with facebook, you can redirect current domains to your facebook page, but if the consumer types in http://www.facebook.com/coke…. wouldn’t you prefer if you had this in place and not lose those potential facebook fans. You could use your domain redirect to also point to http://www.facebook.com/coke….

Comment by david — April 22, 2009 @ 8:26 pm

I’d pay for the ability to get the old UI back.

Comment by Joshua Fingold — April 22, 2009 @ 10:18 pm

Bah – this could mark the beginning of the end for FB.

Comment by Josh — April 23, 2009 @ 1:34 am

Anyone with a domain can just set up http://www.mycompany.com/fb or /facebook to redirect to their facebook page.

I certainly wouldn’t pay for it, FB differentiated itself by forcing use of your real name, now they want to flip flop to a screen name? Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Comment by That'sdumb! — April 23, 2009 @ 2:17 am

I see a need for a vanity URL for a blog, but not for Facebook when your name is all over your page. I could see how they would make a ton of money from people who think they need a vanity URL, however, I would not pay for one.

Comment by Kellee — April 23, 2009 @ 2:21 am

Facebook is a dying galaxy. I only use it because some of my family and friends are there but many other contacts that are registered there hardly use it at all anymore and, like me, just go there to keep things aligned and consistent with other social media sites they are using. They should sell vanity urls because I think in the future connecting with the organization pages and the vanity users will be the only reason anyone goes there.

Comment by Nicholas Nayme — April 23, 2009 @ 2:24 am

No way I would pay for that, UNLESS it was on behalf of a business or promotional effort.

What if Facebook connected us to everything? http://bit.ly/fbconnected

Comment by jestebanc — April 23, 2009 @ 2:28 am

@Nicholas, Yep … Facebook got rid of polls for users and only has them as engagement ads but this isn't an engagement ad.

Comment by Nick ONeill — April 23, 2009 @ 5:03 am

I’d be happy to pay for a vanity URL for a small one-time fee. I don’t want a fwd either, but something that would rank in the SERPs for the url/name/keyword/name

Comment by Chuck Reynolds — April 23, 2009 @ 7:11 am

Are you sure that’s a Facebook poll?

Comment by Nicholas Carlson — April 23, 2009 @ 7:27 am

i would pay $20 for a vanity URL with my name.

And of course MySpace gives them away for free. But then you'd have to be on myspace

Re: increasing FB SEO – I think they're alright in that dept

Comment by Rick — April 23, 2009 @ 8:04 am

What is the justification for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for “/shoes”.

Any thought behind those numbers?

Comment by Jason Keath — April 23, 2009 @ 8:42 am

Why should we pay for it whereas so many services offer it for free? I start being a bit tired of the doulbe language of FB: we listen to our user (officially) but we do not adopt a nice conduct towards them.

Comment by Guillaume — April 23, 2009 @ 9:43 am

No, I wouldn’t pay for it. And Myspace allows you to craft your URL address for free.

But, I’m not a celebrity (yet!) nor am I a business, and as a regular individual I just don’t care enough to make it worth the money. I’m searchable by name through Facebook, and I keep it private from google. Who cares if my name trails the URL or not? As someone else pointed it, it’s already all over the page itself anyway.

Comment by Jody — April 23, 2009 @ 10:57 am

Considering the completely unproven long term nature of any social media site – no commercial enterprise should ever bind their identity to a facebook.com URL.

Use redirects from your own domain to the facebook.com URLs as suggested by many above already.

(no relation to Nick, unless, of course, he is some love child I am unaware)

Comment by Michael O'Neill — April 23, 2009 @ 11:51 am

Why do celebrities get it for free and we the common people have to pay for it? Doesn’t it hint off “discrimination” at worst and “favoritism” at best? Facebook, if I were you, I won’t go near there.

Comment by HSW — April 23, 2009 @ 12:14 pm

@Nick, Facebook confirmed the poll was theirs

Comment by Nicholas Carlson — April 23, 2009 @ 12:42 pm

What makes you think facebook sponsored that poll?

Comment by Facebook User — April 23, 2009 @ 10:07 pm

well even if they charged 50p, they'd make loads of money

Comment by b ri — May 13, 2009 @ 6:53 am

I don't think I'd pay for it. I also just set up a redirect to create my own facebook url, easy enough and it's free!

Comment by Holly Hopper — June 11, 2009 @ 7:17 am

I would pay for an address, just bypass the 1000 fan rule!

Comment by mr exchange server — June 11, 2009 @ 5:50 pm

Breaking: Facebook Asks Users If They’ll Pay For Vanity URLs

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