Customize YouTube Channel URL

Learn about the importance of a YouTube channel URL and tips on how you can customize YouTube channel URL to boost your channel marketing.

So far we have covered all the bases of a YouTube channel.

We have even highlighted all those essentials of a YouTube channel; the dos and the don’ts. 

But let’s get to the main part; customizing YouTube URL.

So what is a URL and how you can customize it?

Read on to find out! 

What Is A Custom URL And Why Should You Create One?

URL or Uniform Resource Locator is casually known as a web address; it is a reference to a web resource that specifies the location for the web address on a computer network, as well as, a mechanism for accessing it.

So the question now comes, what exactly is a custom URL?

It was introduced in 2016.

The custom URL allows you to create a URL for your channel, based on your liking. 

A custom URL is an addition to your legacy or ID-based URLs.

You can use the custom URL for your channel promotion efforts.

Custom URL basically can be one word or name which you can share with your audience. 

It is a shorter and easy-to-access way for everyone.

They can vary from your current display name to your legacy user name or your linked & verified domain name.

Legacy username is used by many of the users.

There are a few small but informative things to know about it; like how can you take up your name as your legacy username.

You can simply look under the details; when was your channel created and it might have a username. 

User names are usually no longer needed to create a channel.

But even if you do not have a username, you can still use this URL to link directly to your channel – even though your channel name has been changed since you chose your user name.

Note: existing user names cannot be changed.

You can also share a shorter version of your legacy username URL by removing “/user”, such as youtube.com/greenpeace. 

You can only use it obviously if it is not taken by any other user.

One of the simplest examples of legacy usernames is ‘Disney’ from Walt Disney, the founder. 

Now it is more clear even than before that obviously legacy usernames belong to the founders, so you cannot use them unless which you chose is not taken by any other user name, linking directly to their URL link.

Moving on to the next step; for instance, you now have your customized URL, for what purposes can you use it?

You can use it if you are promoting a social media page or a certain type of blog.

For example, a customized URL of Instagram is much easier to remember and type than to remember and type some difficult codes and string of numbers.

After having this conversation, you must be wondering why you should create one. 

Basically, a custom Youtube URL comes in handy when you want to promote your channel. 

They are easy to remember hence the best option to promote your Youtube channel.

Some places you can post your URLs to promote your channel include:

1. Billboards
2. Magazines
3. Flyers
4. Side of vehicles

This way these short links are easy to remember because they stay in view more regularly than any other way of remembering them.

Now let’s see how you can customize your channel URL. 

About Custom URL Eligibility

As we know that a custom URL is an easy-to-remember channel URL for your audience which we can share with them, so, your custom URLs display as youtube.com/yourcustomname or youtube.com/c/yourcustomname.

This is a simple overview of all of the readers to understand the URL.

So as we have gone through some of these details before too, let us mention again that anyone of you can use an available custom URL based on:

1. Display name
2. YouTube username
3. Current vanity URLs
4. Linked website name

Note: while you share your custom URL, it can be used in any accents and capitalization you would prefer.

Then there is another important thing known as custom URL eligibility.

For creating a custom URL for your channel, your account has to have:

1. Uploaded profile picture
2. Uploaded banner image
3. Account must be a month old
4. 100 or more subscribers

Note: all of us have the right to change, remove or reclaim URLs at any time. 

For instance, we can also reclaim a custom URL that was associated with a deleted Google account.

But, we have to choose the URL from the options that YouTube suggests for us.

And if somehow, you regret what you chose for your custom URL before, do not worry at all.

Because you can change it again but by only deleting it and claiming an entirely new one. 

And remember that it takes a couple of days for your old custom URL to deactivate completely.

And be careful! because you can only delete a custom channel URL up to 3 times per year.

Another thing, you should also keep in mind that YouTube doesn’t allow you to remove your old legacy URL even if you’ve set up a new custom URL. 

Once you are eligible for a custom URL, you will automatically get an email notification in your settings. 

It may also appear as a notification in your Channel dashboard.

Sadly, one thing happens to different users who recreate their custom URLs.

Once they deleted their first accounts in order to make a new one, they found one thing hard to accept: whenever people browsed them, the system directed them to their old legacy usernames.

And since there is no further work done on this issue, you have to accept that once you have switched your usernames, the system will still remember your old ones.

So, not to experience this issue, we advise you to follow some simple rules and tips, so you do not have to feel the need of making a new customized URL.

1. Plan everything ahead and write them down somewhere, so you can focus on the details one by one.
2. Read the terms of use in advance, so you do not get confused afterward or get hassled by the terms.
3. Define the category of your videos, so people would know exactly what kind of stuff they are going to find out on your channel; by defining the category of your videos, you are always clearing your own mind about the stuff you would be coming up with in future.
4. Define the group of audience in your mind, decide if your videos are for adults, kids, or a specific age-group of people.
5. Optimize your channel appearance by filling out all the information about your channel on your profile.

How To Set Up A Custom YouTube URL?

As we have already mentioned above that if you are eligible for a custom URL, you will be able to see a notice in your basic info settings, then get an email notification. 

You may also see a notification in the dashboard of your channel.

So we are going to guide you through all the process, so you can easily find a way to confirm your customized URL.

Note: Remember that once a custom URL has been set up by you, you can’t change it or transfer the URL to someone else.

If you want to remove your custom URL and claim a new one, we can also guide you through its process too.

We are repeating this fact so you won’t forget that you can only remove a custom URL for your channel up to 3 times per year, so be careful.

If you’re eligible, you can claim a new custom URL right away using the steps below. 

And as we may all know by now that it takes a couple of days for the previous URL to deactivate. 

If you have more questions about a custom YouTube URL, contact the YouTube Creator Support team.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. From the left menu, select Customization  – Basic info.
3. Under your current custom URL, click DELETE. 
4. Under About, click your custom URL.
5. Click Remove, then click Remove again to confirm you want to delete your URL. 

Keeping URLs Simple Snd SEO Friendly

It is essential for all of us to know, who want to create their URLs, that it is highly suggested to keep the URL simple.

Simplifying URLs means that we should not make it a complex one, we should not put too many punctuation marks or words in it. 

We also suggest you use ‘Hyphen (-)’ in your URL instead of ‘Underscore (_).

Because using hyphens in your URL is highly recommended by the professionals.

For instance, while creating your URL, you should prefer:

http://www.example.com/purple-flower.html, instead of:

http://www.example.com/purpleflower.html (or purple_flower.html).

It is merely highly recommended to use a hyphen because a hyphen lets search engines know that “SEO”, “site” and “audit” are three separate words.

Any site’s URL should be as simple as possible and organized. 

It should be easy for a human mind to understand and remember it and it happens when it is constructed logically, instead of throwing anything or everything in your URL.

Such as, readable words instead of longer ID numbers.

And what do we know about SEO friendly URLs?

SEO friendly URLs are those which are constructed to meet the need and understanding of its users and searchers.

Note: URLs optimized for SEO ought to be precise and keyword-rich, they should be short.

It is important for us to understand this fact before making a URL that has an influential link with SEO.

Search engines use our web page’s URL to understand what our content is about, along with the title tag, link anchor text, and especially the content itself.

Knowing how to create and construct URLs is so important that the Google SEO starter guide has even a whole section specifically about this.

Our pages are ranked on search engines by the keywords we provide for our pages, the more they relate to the search-words of searchers the more they appear above all other searches.

 When we introduce a keyword in our URL, that keyword tells Google that this page is about that keyword.

It might seem to you as if we are repeating a few facts about URLs but the more a few terms recur in our article, the more you would understand their importance.

In fact, Google themselves state that:

“URLs with words that are relevant to your site’s content and structure are friendlier for visitors navigating your site.”

Conclusion

We really hope that we were helpful to all the people who have been looking for the answers to clear their queries about URLs and their customization. 

We have gone through all the technical details we knew so you would not worry about creating your customized URLs. 

We wish you a happy and easy URLing, after reading our article!

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