How many times have you seen a long, complex, unintelligible URL and thought, “Well, how will I remember that”? Even if you have the URL written on a piece of paper, chances are you will make a typo while entering it. These messy fragments have been deemed “dirty URLs” and have very little benefit. In fact, hackers have an easier time modifying dirty URLs because they give away valuable information about the website’s operations.

Ex. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/FortLauderdalei-FL/PristinePublicRelations/143133225719854?__a=4&ajaxpipe=1

It’s becoming a common practice for users of social networks, blogs and websites to create user-friendly URLs. These are short, concise URLs that are easy to type into a search engine. Things to think about: case sensitivity, punctuation, typos. You want your user-friendly name to be short and sweet.

Ex. http://www.facebook.com/PristinePR

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How to give your Facebook profile or fan page a user-friendly URL.

1. Find Account Settings under the Account tab

2. The second setting under this menu is User Name. Click this tab.

3. Facebook will prompt you with “Choose your new username carefully. You can only change your username once”. Keep simplicity in mind.

4. Check the availability of that name. If all is copacetic you will have yourself a friendly URL.

If that doesn’t lead you to help change your fan page, simple go to http://www.facebook.com/username/. You will be directed to a drop down menu where you can choose which page you’d like to edit. Keep simplicity in mind and check the availability of that name. Again, if all is copacetic you will have yourself a friendly URL!