YouTube begins rolling out something people have wanted for years – vanity URL ‘handles’

Remember ‘vanity URLs’? Those short, descriptive, and most importantly memorable website links that would help you quickly identify a creator’s profile or page online? YouTube seems to have just now remembered them, and some individuals have recently received emails asking them to claim their own.

It’s baffling to think that YouTube of all services has not offered this feature before now, and any time you wanted to link someone to your profile, you’d have to first visit it before copying the long-form URL to share.

In a blog post this week, the company detailed how ‘Handles’ will work and specifies that they’re going this route now because the platform has evolved into something more than a video consumption destination. As you have probably suspected by now, the company sees it as a social network of sorts, and this comparison is technically fair what with all of the extra features it offers nowadays.

Take, for example, its community tab, polls, and more – these tools have allowed creators to connect on deeper levels with their audience without having to produce an entirely new video. Such things are useful in situations where they may want to gauge interest in a topic or relay life updates to their viewers. Oftentimes, this variety of information is not really in line with their usual uploads.

Introducing handles, a new way for people to easily find and engage with creators and each other on YouTube.

YouTube Blog

Handles will join channel names as another way to identify a YouTube channel, but unlike the latter, the new feature will be more unique and help you establish your brand. Pretty much all other social platforms have offered this since, well, the dawn of their existence.

If you aren’t receiving an email yet then don’t worry – you should know that this update is rolling out over the next 30 days or so. Determining factors on when you should be able to pick your own handle depends on your subscriber count, whether or not your channel is active or not, and overall your YouTube presence thus far.