How can I create a custom URL for my Facebook Fan Page?

Now that I have read your splendid tutorial on how to create a Facebook fan page (see How to Create Your Own Facebook Fan Page) I want to take the next step and set a custom URL shortcut for the page. Can I do that, or is it reserved for just the big guys in the fan page world? If so, what's the procedure, Dave?

Dave's Answer:

Glad my tutorial was helpful. As you'll see from these other Facebook fan page articles, my fan page is not only a place where you can sign up as a fan of Ask Dave Taylor (and please do become a fan of Ask Dave Taylor on Facebook) but also a place where I experiment and figure out how to do things easily in the world of Facebook.

First things first, though. It used to be you needed a ton of fans to be able to set a custom URL for your Facebook fan page, but then late in 2009 they changed it to a minimum of 100 fans. Just before the end of the year people experimenting realized that the minimum had dropped even lower, and as far as I know, you only need 25 fans to be able to set a custom URL.

To start, log in to your Facebook account, then in a new browser window or tab, go to the following URL:

http://www.facebook.com/username

If you've already set a custom URL name for your Facebook account itself, it'll look like mine does:

As you can see, the custom URL for getting to my Facebook profile is "facebook.com/d1taylor" ("davetaylor" was already taken by the time I tried to get it, alas). Below it is what we want, though, "Set a username for your Pages". The first three words are the link. Click on 'em and...

Check out that pop-up menu to see what pages you have that are eligible for a custom URL:

You can see that I am an administrator of the South Africa Project too, but that's not what I want to work with, so I'll pick "The Ask Dave Taylor Fan Page". Now I can play around and try different shortened URLs to find one that works:

That doesn't work because they need to be a minimum of five characters long. Enter one that works, though, and you get a nice popup:

If you like the name you've specified and are cool with all the small print it displays here, then click on "Confirm" and you've just set a custom URL for your Facebook fan page, congratulations!

As for me, I found out through experimentation that someone else appears to have registered "askdavetaylor" as a shortcut, which is a violation of our registered trademark , so we filed a complaint with Facebook and waited to see what transpired. Therefore I didn't actually register "AskDT" after all, even though it appears I must have done so to get to this point in the process. Stay tuned!

Categorized: Facebook Help (Article 9230, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: facebook fan pages, facebook groups, registered trademarks, south africa
Previous: How do I set an auto-reply or vacation reply in MSN Hotmail?
Next: What are the most popular New Years Resolutions?

Subscribe!

Never miss another Q&A article! Click to subscribe:

Comments

It sucks that Facebook doesn't allow us to change the username, WTF ? I suppose one could always create a new account with the same name to change it.

Posted by: nomad at January 2, 2010 11:28 AM

Maybe they did away with this feature, because the 'set a username for your pages' link no longer appears unless it's a Firefox browser issue. I tried to follow the Facebook tutorial, also, with the same result.

Posted by: Kim at January 7, 2010 8:52 PM

using firefox my web page sound only plays while scrolling or if I switch to another tab. In IE it works right, it should autostart and be hidden with loop infinite

Posted by: Rob at January 11, 2010 7:07 AM

Thanks, this helped me in setting up my own fan page.

Posted by: Michael Hayward at February 17, 2010 1:31 AM

I claimed the page / URL but I wanted to add the fans later - I can find the page as a search but the address doesn't work yet. If I get 25 fans will it then work? THANKS.

Posted by: FRED at March 5, 2010 9:24 AM

Thanks for the info i was wondering why it would allow the setup before the 25 fans. thanks for the heads up....will share.

Posted by: Mark at April 27, 2010 7:35 AM

Hi Dave,
I'm having a problem w/Facebook's custom URL that I'm hoping you can clue me in to. I recently created a custom URL for a client so that she can promote her new page to her clients. We even linked it to her website so people could click on "Follow us on Facebook." The problem is that not everyone, including our client, gets to her page when typing in the URL address or clicking on the link. Some people just get to the Facebook home page asking them to sign in.

I've never encountered this before with a custom URL. Would you know why the custom URL might not always direct people to the Page it is set up for? It appears that maybe one has to be logged into Facebook to actually get to the Page. I'm in desperate need of an answer for this and would appreciate your feedback.

Thanks. - Gerri

Posted by: gerri at May 19, 2010 12:29 PM

Faecebook does not allow giving a specific username to Facebook Fan Page until you have at least 25 fans.

Posted by: SFIhomebizz at July 19, 2010 3:26 AM

Thank you...I've been trying to do this for a while and this totally helped!

Posted by: tara at August 2, 2010 11:00 PM

You rock! The answer to my question -- was trying to get a url for my business fan page. Now I have one -- http://www.facebook.com/AirPac
Thanks a million!

Posted by: Tina Behnke at September 3, 2010 8:58 AM

Wow, that was easy. Thanks, Dave. I just became a fan.

Cheers,

Mitch

Posted by: Mitchell Allen at October 20, 2010 5:56 AM

I have tried this, but I got an error saying that I was not eligible to setup a username for my page.

Posted by: Mahesh at October 25, 2010 8:22 AM

If I switch a page that now has 25 fans, shorten the URL, will the fans still be fans or will their links get broken? I'm afraid to pull the trigger without knowing this.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/SmileCare-Family-Dentistry-Lancaster/163810560320994
I want to shorten to /smilecarelancaster.

I'll have to do this for 50 offices. Thanks for this post/thread. I truly appreciate it.

Posted by: Susan Finch at November 30, 2010 6:07 PM

Susan, as far as I know shortening the URL won't affect anything, just give you a nicer URL. Other changes might well have you start over. Good luck, it's a pain!

Posted by: Dave Taylor at November 30, 2010 10:02 PM

I also created one.. Rapidop.com , but i think it also depends upon the number of fans your page has. As facebook doesnot allow me to create name for my less popular page.

Posted by: Samir at December 6, 2010 10:11 PM

thanks a lot!
i've just created my new profile url!
i'm really glad because i was searching 1 year for this!!
thanks again!

Posted by: nickfreitas at February 4, 2011 1:56 PM

I followed your instructions and they worked exactly as you described! However... I have a personal account and a business account and they are linked -- and now my URLs are on opposite sites. According to Facebook I can never undo this. This is of course a very big problem because I need to grow my brand by my company name (FinancialRx), not by my name. Do you know of any work-arounds to this problem or am I stuck forever?

Thanks so much for any guidance you can provide.
-Wendy

Posted by: Wendy Mihm at April 27, 2011 12:12 PM

Thanks so much for this - have just completed and (hope you don't mind) posted a link to you on my wall. x

Posted by: Kate Takes 5 at May 6, 2011 9:30 AM

Thanks so much for this!!!! Your directions were so simple and this simple minded needed exactly that!! You're appreciated!!

Posted by: Francie at June 6, 2011 4:47 PM

Thanks for the great tip!

Posted by: Ryan @ EatSaveTravel.com at June 9, 2011 3:37 PM

My Facebook page is not accessible unless signed in. Originally, my custom url was allowing access to non Facebook members (as expected), but not anymore. I still have the required minimum "likes" and the custom url still is active. I can't find any help with this. Any ideas?

Posted by: Mike at June 21, 2011 6:19 AM

Thanks for this information. I decided to take your advice but facebook does not allow me to set a custom url for my page?

The message I get from Facebook says: blablabla is not eligible for a username at this time. In the future, blablabla will be able to set a username.

Does anyone know how long I have to wait to be able to set a custom url?

Posted by: Michael at July 30, 2011 10:12 AM

Michael, it's not about time, it's about the number of fans. You need to amass 25 fans to be able to register for a custom URL.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at July 30, 2011 11:49 AM

I see that makes sense. Thanks much and appreciate the reply back. Really do appreciate it. Now I have to get to work to add the fans. Thanks again!

Posted by: Michael at July 30, 2011 3:06 PM

Question. I had to create a FB page in order to get a fan page the other day. After my 1st 25 fans I added my vanity username. Now I have a couple hundred fans and am trying to set my url name the same as my dj name that is currently posted on my fan page. the url above is pages/NAME/124338504967506 I went to the link u posted fb.com/username i selected my page but it wont let me make my username (URL) the same as my page name. what do i do?

Posted by: Menacekeys at September 4, 2011 8:19 AM

Menacekeys, alas, one of the few hard limits on Facebook is that once you set a vanity or custom URL name for a fan page or group, you can never change it again. So you're stuck now. :-( Might be time to just live with it, or try creating yet ANOTHER fan page and this time set it to the name you want after 25 people sign up. Good luck.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at September 4, 2011 5:57 PM

Since yesterday it's not necessary to get 25 people to sign-up in order to set custom URLs pointing to our pages. Great news but be careful because once set it's not possible to change the redirection. Very annoying.

Posted by: Diego (Asesor SEO) at September 16, 2011 6:39 PM

I have set up a url for this page and it did some strange stuff. First, it assigned it to a new page that has none of my info. I have to go into that page and click on the "app" button for it to take me to MY page. I did a test. If I enter the original default url into the address it takes me to my page, which is correct. However, if I enter the new url it assigned to that page it takes me to a new page that is not set up. How can I fix this?

Posted by: Stella at October 16, 2011 5:36 PM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!