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Facebook Makes Their URLs Search-Engine Friendly

by Jesse Stay — published on January 20th, 2008

I just noticed, while browsing the I’m On Facebook — Now What??? Facebook Page that Facebook has now made their URLs search engine friendly. So now, instead of:

http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=6816644117

It is now:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-On-Facebook—Now-What/6816644117

This appears to apply only to public-facing Facebook Pages, and not User Profiles or Application About Pages (which are also supposed to be public). Thinking back on this, I don’t know why it took them so long – this is a very easy server configuration that makes a very large difference in search engine ranking. Will they do the same with other public facing pages in Facebook?

Posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 12:44 am. Filed under Facebook, I'm on Facebook -- Now What???, SEO, Social Media, Social Network Optimization (SNO). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Thomas,


    Facebook only makes the Facebook "Pages" friendly. Your profile is not affected by this change. For a Facebook "Page" it is done automatically by Facebook - just go to the Page and it shows up with the new URL format.

  • Thanks for the heads up - I Googled myself and, sure enough, my FB Profile URL now includes my name: www.facebook.com/p/Mari_Smith/566610867. I couldn't find my FB Page though (it's not that active yet).


    BTW, check out the "Profile To" FB app; this creates a Profile URL of http://profile.to/marismith. I started using that in email siggy files, biz cards, etc.


    However a friend says the link first goes to the Profile To app and asks the person to install... though there is an "ignore/no thanks" button. My friend said it was confusing so I reverted to the longer URL. Here's the direct link for the Profile To app to check it out for yourself: http://apps.facebook.com/profiles/

  • How do you change the url to be more friendly?


    I went through my account settings and didn't see anything there.


    Thanks,
    Tom

  • OctalMage, that's a great idea, and as I mentioned, it's a simple thing to do. I would also like to have the option to make more information on my profile public.

  • I hope facebook makes user profile urls cleaner. I wish it was like twitter so I could tell someone I meet, "Yeah just go to facebook.com/user/jasonstallings" or whatever.

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