For SEO experts,
Facebook profiles have always been something of a letdown because of the random string of characters used to make up the URLs. It would be much better if instead of “id=592952074″ for your profile page, you could have /fred-jones.
You’d rank better in the SERPs for your name and be able to optimise your Facebook page for Google. It’s vain perhaps, but that’s just what Facebook is calling the idea, vanity URLs, and they’re being launched on Saturday.
Vanity URLs will be available on Facebook from 12:01 EDT this Saturday, strictly on a first come, first served basis, so expect a rush of people looking to grab their name before someone else does.
From Saturday you’ll be able to change the URL for your Facebook profile to read: www.facebook.com/username/.
That’s bad news if your name is John Smith, better move quick!
Facebook is also offering SEO styled URLs for pages, so if you have a fan page or a page for your company, you can change that as well.
One word of warning though, it’s a one shot deal as you can’t change them afterwards, so don’t make any mistakes when doing it!
You can read the full details on Facebook’s blog here.
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