How to Set Custom Short URL for Google Plus Page
Tuan Do | Updated On
After a long time anticipating, Google Plus is finally open for business as it allows creating Google Plus Page. The new feature is very similar to Facebook Fan Page and someone even called it the Google’s version of Facebook Page. This is an important move of Google Plus as the social network was open for individuals only and said no to anonymity and brands. Now all companies, celebrities or sport teams can create their own Google+ Pages at http://plus.google.com/pages/create.
The change absolutely can bring more new users and increase the number of Google Plus Profiles to more than the current number of 40 millions. Google+ has some advantages over Facebook, for example, the comprehensive collection of free services like Search, Gmail, Documents, etc, could help them easily promote and tie the network to those services. However, there is an important feature that is not available on Google Plus yet, that is the option to change Google Plus Page name. It is really not comfortable to promote your Google+ Page with a difficult-to-remember long numerical string. Here is the URL to TechWalls’ Page:
Update: Google is launching Google+ Direct Connect that users can use the “+” symbol before a brand name to go directly to a Google+ page in search. Custom URLs are still under development and Google says that they probably will charge monthly fee for the URLs. Here is how you can get the custom URLs for your Google Plus page:
1. Go to your Google Plus Page -> Get Started
2. You will see the section “Connect your website”, click on “Get the badge” and install a badge on your website. Just by adding the snippet of code to your site, you will help understand your page’s popularity and relevancy.
3. Add link to your website on Google Plus page.
4. Wait for Google to approve and roll out custom URLs for your website.
In case your page hasn’t been approved for a vanity URL as Google Plus hasn’t made it widely available yet (it is even not available for Google+ individual accounts), you need to use an unofficial tool to shorten the URL like we set custom URL for Google+ Individual Profiles.
Here are the steps:
1. Create your Google Plus Page
2. Go to your Page and get the Page ID on the address bar. For example, my page’s ID is 100456744122229823295.
3. Go to Gplus.to.
4. Fill in your desired Page name and the ID below, then click on the button Add.
5. Your Page URL is generated now and you will get one like this:
I will update the post as soon as there is an official or better solution. Let me know if you have another way to set custom URL for your Google Plus Page.
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Juan
I prefer to create a subdomain like googleplus.mydomain.com. I don’t trust to tell gplus.to our name, later they can messure trafic and get the name when google activate the proper name option and try to sell it.
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Until Google+ adds the custom url as an official feature, I think your suggestion of using something like “googleplus.mydomain.com” is a better and more safe alternative to using (ephemeral) third party services like gplus.to. Of course not everybody has a domain…
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The Gplus.to link seems real buggy. It keeps opening up a new window when I click any field.
Dustin
Themespotter.com-
Tuan Do
The service is quite popular and I don’t have any problem with it. Have you checked your computer for virus?
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dimaks
Hi Tuan,
I did my Blog’s Google +1 page yesterday and it was pretty fast. Thought I haven’t made the gplus.to for its shirt URL, so I might just try it now. Thanks for this post and illustration.. cheers! -
i like too much… how can we short google search? i use bit.ly.
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The Gplus.to didn’t work for me too. I don’t understand why google doesn’t permit to rename URL…
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Hi Pankaj, me too agree this is great way to remember you +1 id. Yes you also now have from Google your link cloaker and shortner ‘ goo.gl ‘ go give it a try and only thing that now seek in this is the way to customise the link instead of remembering the short link given by goo.gl.
Hi steph le plobier, this Gplus.to really works fine, just copy only the numbers of your Google+ ID which you can get easily be logging into your Google Plus and then clicking on name next to your personal picture or photo. After clicking your name just have a look at the page url and you will see long list of numbers of 21 digits, just copy the same and place it into the Gplus where they indicate the same with numbers, at the left side just type the username you prefer to use.
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I did this & when I tried out the new link I got error 404. I tried to start over & it says my name is taken.
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I guess it just took a while, now it works.
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advature
nice article to mail to the employees
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Still no official solution from google?
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Tuan Do
Not yet, we are still waiting. I’m not sure if they want to implement this feature.
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Works great. We have a website: http://www.redrhinosports.com. I created a Google+ page and created the forward URL using these steps from Tuan. I now have http://gplus.to/redrhino
It took about a minute to take, so give it a second. Thanks for the info. Watch this space for an update and grab your custom url from Google once they open it up!
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Joe
This is just dumb… you can get a bit.ly URL also for free or many many others… if you’re serious… then buy YOUR OWN domain… for cents a month anywhere online… this service is crap and we all know that eventually Google will allow this… they’re just thinking on “what to name the whole thing” because it won’t be google.com/username for sure… in any case… services like go.to offer the same damn thing with soooooooooo many more options,,, FREE!!!! – but hey… thats just my two cents.
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Calla
I tried this and it didn’t work….any suggestions?
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Sarah Lee
Is this still not an option? I see some pages with nice URL’s matching their company names etc.
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Tuan Do
Yeah, it’s not available yet. Could you show me those Google Plus vanity URLs?
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I havent seen any good URL sites either, if you have some please share
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filz
great looking blog
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If i want to replace my old name to new name for the same google plus profile what should i do?
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Thanks , but i saw some google plus accounts have this kind of url plus.com/+nickname ? how to make it like that ?
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Tuan Do
Yeah you are right. But it is for some verified accounts only. We will have to wait more to get our own vanity URLs. Check out this post: http://techwalls.com/news/set-custom-url-google-plus-profile/
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Edwin McMander
Google+ Direct Connect – is on the way to the public. Anyhow if you have Google+ link in your webpage, the chances of getting custom vanity URLs will be more easier. Since page’s eligibility for Google+ Direct Connect is determined algorithmically depending upon the relevancy, popularity and the links between Google+ page and your website.
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Edwin McMander
Also, its not going to be free for everyone, for claiming certain custom url’s you need to pay Google..
Check out Google+ Terms for Custom URL
http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/tos-custom-url.html-
Tuan Do
Thanks a lot for pointing it out, Edwin.
I’ve updated the post and hopefully this site will get approved for a custom URL soon.
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Hey, that’s a short but great tip! Thanks!
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kamran
Yes I got the custom url of google plus page and you can look it from https://plus.google.com/+rozeepk/posts
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Tuan Do
Congrats Kamran,
Could you tell us what steps you followed?-
kamran
Well I haven’t do anything it was automatically done, as I open my page and it give me option to make automatically url of page.
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with Gplus.to is only joke, that is only forwarding url site, nobody need that
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Tuan Do
Yeah that’s just a temporary way. Google offer custom URLs for established profiles and pages already, we are looking for that one.
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Gareth
So Google+ still don’t give vanity names? What a joke, Nike have one.
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well i am still waiting for it as my account is verified and still not have url option in it. any further guideline?
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gplus.to is indeed a great tool that has proved to be really useful to all the Google+ users since the emergence of Google+ It’s time for Google to officially roll out vanity URLs for Google+ profiles too.
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