I’m not a regular visitor to G+ but I’m a true fan of all things Google. A couple of months ago, I heard about G+ vanity URLs, meaning you can reserve your custom URL on Google+, e.g. Google.com/+FirasAlghamdi, that is to make it easier to share your profile on the Internet.
Today I noticed a bar on the top of my G+ page inviting me to reserve my own URL. At first, I thought that’s great. Until I noticed that I cannot reserve my own name because Google claims that many people are sharing the same name with me. What? Ok, wouldn’t it be fair to make it a first come first serve? If no body has reserved this name before, why can’t I be the first?
However, I found my way in 😉 or let’s say a work around to accomplish this and have my own name after the + sign. I just removed the last letter from my last name “i” on my public profile, so my new name would become “Firas Alghamd” notice the missing “i”?. Then I headed to reserve my custom URL and I found the same message asking me to add a letter or a number after the + FirasAlghamd URL, so I did 🙂 I just added the missing “i”, went on with the rest of the process to reserve the new URL. I then re-modified my public name to Firas Alghamdi and now I have my profile name and URL to my preferences. Problem solved!
Disclaimer: This method works at the time of writing this post. However, if Google decides to take action towards those who follow this method I shall not be held responsible.
Hope this can help you out there to reserve your own name on G+.