[Suggestion] A better personalized URL to the profiles?

[versailles]

Hey Upwork! FLers can have a kinda personalized URL to their profiles. But these are not easy to remember:

www.upwork.com/fl/lenaellis

Ok, now what about this?

lenaellis.upwork.com

[j0rt3g4]

That would limit the "subdomains" that upwork.com can use, I don't t think is gonna happen because we're dealing here with "DNS" stuff not only url redirection.

[creativedigit · Accepted solution]

Hi Rene,

Just like Jose pointed out, this will make some problems for Upwork to deal with all these subdomains. I'm also not aware of a way to generate subdomains from the code-behind. Generally speaking, these subdomains are generated from the domain registrar's account. On top of that, this will cause Upwork some problems in case they want to reserve their own subdomains and someone picked the same sub-domain. An example of this in practice would be the following subdomain which is reserved for Upwork:

https://blog.upwork.com/

Now it will be nice if Upwork can improve the URL structure by removing the "/fl/" part, just like Facebook does (Generally it is: facebook.com/UniqueName)

As for myself, I don't think it's too hard to remember my Upwork URL. I made it as easy as possible. I know the leading website part of my profile, and I know my name. So my URL is simply:

upwork.com/fl/wassim

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Wassim

[charles_kozierok]

There are actually sites that do it that way, even pretty large ones, so I think it is not a technical limitation, just a design choice.

[creativedigit]

Hello Charles,

The only technical workaround would be using "Wildcard Subdomains" but I personally prefer to avoid going that route. With a platform like Upwork, you're almost definitive to end up with tons of issues. I've seen big companies do it, but in my opinion, it isn't a good practice.

If for instance, you'd like to pick "charles.k" for your unique URL, the way Upwork has it set up right now will work and you end up with:

upwork.com/fl/charles.k

However, it would not work if the URL were:

charles.k.upwork.com

Because the latter is a sub-sub-domain.

That's just a brief example. I believe the way it is set up right now by Upwork is the least stressful way for Upwork management.

What I do personally recommend is buying a premium shortener link and customize it to your liking and have it redirect to your profile's URL.

[creativedigit]

Another suggestion for Rene, if you want to go crazy, you may grab "rk.co" available on Godaddy at $48,749.00

Then you can spend a year working on Upwork to make it up.

[wendy_writes]

Ahhh - it made clear sense until Wassim explained why it won't work. 

[versailles]

And then comes Wassim and everything makes sense 😀

You ruined my hopes, but now I understand how it works and why it wouldn't work. And laugh if you want, but pointing a domain (something way cheaper than rk.co) to my UW URL already crossed my mind 😀. 

[charles_kozierok]

Again, it could work just fine. There's a site I am on with over 100,000 members and they use a subdomain structure like that. They just convert periods to hyphens.

It's possible that they aren't actual subdomains but are redirected to a hidden folder structure, but the address you type in is "user.site.com" just as you suggested.

Of course it would be a fair bit of work for Upwork to make this change. But I wanted you to know that your suggestion is certainly feasible.

And yes, pointing a custom domain to your profile would be a good solution and not terribly expensive. (Well, assuming you don't use the one Wassim suggested. 🙂 )

[creativedigit]

Hey Charles, I've already did that in the past for a client so I know it is possible to some extent, but it's not recommended, otherwise giant companies like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn would have done it.

Now if you, Rene and I can have these three domains we would be cool as hell:

RK.CO
CK.CO
WT.CO

[versailles]

Wassim, you can buy WTF.LB 😀

[creativedigit]

LOL Rene I swear I have never thought of the abbreviation of my name like that. You're a sick man 😂

[charles_kozierok]

When I had a solar system installed in my house in the late 1990s, the tiny solar contractor I was working with had a four-letter abbreviation and the .com for it had not yet been registered.

I strongly and repeatedly recommended to him that he grab it as soon as possible, and after a few weeks he did.

Every time I have seen him since he has gushed thanks at me over this, lol.

I wish I had cybersquatted more back then.

[versailles]

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@Charles K wrote:

When I had a solar system installed in my house 

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 I just froze when I read this.

[charles_kozierok]

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@Rene K wrote:

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@Charles K wrote:

When I had a solar system installed in my house 

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 I just froze when I read this.

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What.. what did I do this time.... lol

[sergio-soria]

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@Charles K wrote:

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@Rene K wrote:

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@Charles K wrote:

When I had a solar system installed in my house 

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 I just froze when I read this.

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What.. what did I do this time.... lol

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LOL I just stumbled upon this... I guess Rene got stunned thinking of the Sun, Venus, Mars, etc. being installed inside your home!