Everyone was excited when Facebook introduced its own vanity URL option. Instead of seeing a long URL like “faceook.com/profile.php?id=145637253,” you could change it to “facebook.com/bob.smith,” for example. Twitter also lets you choose your URL, assuming no one else already has it. However, the new contender in the social networking game, Google+, does not let you choose a URL. Instead, it’s something like “plus.google.com…” followed by a bunch of numbers. There’s no way anyone would ever be able to remember your link, and there’s no way of shortening it — until now. An outside app has been created that will let you identify yourself as a proud Google+ user.
Google+ doesn’t use vanity URLs for a good reason. Spammers can easily figure out your email address from the URL since it’s likely that the Google account you used for Google+ is also the same one you use for your email.
The solution, at least a temporary one until Google figures out a way to fix this problem, is a site called Gplus.to. Though it’s not an official Google product, the single-page website has you enter your desired nickname, and the long string of numbers in your Google+ URL, and then turns it into a short URL for your Google+ page. This makes it a million times easier to tell your friends to look you up on Google+ by just telling them the URL is Gplus.to/jbergen, for example.
So far, about 72,000 users have used the site to shorten their Google+ URL. Honestly, we didn’t even know there were 72,000 Google+ users out there yet as the social network has become notorious for being hard to get an invite to. Even people with invites haven’t been able to get in because the site is over capacity.
Will you be snatching up your Gplus.to vanity URL before someone else steals your desired nickname? If so, you better hurry before it’s too late.
