As a developer, it is currently impossible to direct traffic to my profile or my games with a memorizable link. As a player, it is difficult for me to navigate to games or players without using the search bar or saving bookmarks in my browser.
Roblox wants to move towards being a more social and connected platform. Pretty much every social network allows the creation of Vanity URLs: short and customizable URLs that lead to a user’s content.
My request: allow us to promote our games by claiming simple, easy-to-memorize URLs such as roblox.com/g/MinersHaven. Automatically link to user profiles with short username-based URLs like roblox.com/u/berezaa
Because it’s impossible to take a username that has already been used at some point, /u/ links wouldn’t break even if I changed my username. If I changed my name to BillySwagMan, roblox.com/u/berezaa would still redirect to my profile because the name is still tied to my account.
Vanity URLs would help developers promote their content both on and off of Roblox by granting them a powerful marketing tool that every other major UGC website offers.
As others have suggested, there are ways to prevent hostile actors from misusing the game urls:
Manual review of requests to ensure they are appropriate for the specific game
A certain milestone required before a game can apply
Whatever the process, it would be worth it. Vanity urls would make it easy to find a user’s profile and grant games on the platform the level of professionality they deserve.
Let’s take the next step in legitimizing game development on Roblox with vanity URLs.
Redirected domain names would work well, however finding that perfect .com domain is near impossible. I like this idea but what about name sniping from other developer’s successful games?
I would think you would have to verify the ownership (?)
But you have a point if we’re allowed to do such things. Claiming credit will get your link clicked on much more and it would increase the roblox clickbait problem.
Maybe for game URLs, you’d have to apply to get the vanity URL, have a staff member review the game and decide whether or not it should be eligible for a vanity URL. Would help w/ that concern i think.
That’s a great idea, but what if two developers make games with the same name? (Survivor, for example.) What characteristics make a game more eligible for the URL than the other? A first-come-first-serve policy could be one option, but that doesn’t seem like the right way to go. Especially with the botting problem.
If anything, it’ll drive major developers to come up with more original names, I don’t see an issue with conflicting names.
And I’d assume this system would be more directed towards the more popular/established developers anyways, if another game comes along w/ the same name, but the URL has already been taken, they’ll just have to be more unique.
And first-come-first-serve would work fine in this system tbh, it’s how it is on social media.
I think developers when they come time to get a vanity URL, will have everything figured out and make sure their name hasn’t been taken yet
But if we use our own web domain, we are not allowed to post it on Roblox because only certain links are allowed on Roblox. I like @berezaa’s idea because it would allow us to post it on Roblox so we could post it in group shouts, group walls, forums, blurbs, etc.
If you need to post something on the roblox website, to me a much more scalable and simpler solution would be to allow hyperlinking inline text on the website to these whitelisted addresses which is finer UX
Linking to other places in game is an edge case and TeleportService can be used to fill this niche.
Domains can start racking up to be pretty expensive depending on the TLD.
Vanity URLs would be “free” for developers who don’t have much resources in real life.
I personally own around 6 different domains, and am not looking forward to my renew fees on the few that I am keeping.
Not to mention, a users entire personal info can become easily public, persay they don’t have the funds for WhoIS Protection, and just enough for a domain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t quite like the idea of having all of my info public like that, just for the sake of having a re-direct to a game I own.
Although, I do support the hyperlinking. I believe w/ ROBLOX+, Webgl3D has managed to add this to the forums.
People would snipe this though. I think it would need to be a system where only games over a certain visit count are eligible. Otherwise everybody and their dog would register their project that they will never finish.
tl;dr only for released games that are real games and not demos
Custom domains cannot be used on the Roblox website
Domains expose your personal information to the whole world if you don’t understand how whois works
Domains would not work with url extensions, such a VIP server invite link or a tab such as #!/store
Your domain will never be as inherently professional or impressive as roblox.com
These suggestions dance around the issue and do not solve it. As others have suggested, there are many ways to prevent hostile actors from misusing the game urls:
Manual review of requests to ensure they are appropriate for the specific game
Game urls cost Robux
A certain milestone required before a game can apply
Whatever the process, it would be worth it. Vanity urls would make it easy to find a user’s profile and grant games on the platform the level of professionality they deserve.
Yeah I spoke to @Nightgaladeld about this. Places would likely require somewhere between 10k and 100k place visits to be considered. This would prevent spam and make it so mostly only legitimate games would apply.
Additionally, it may be better to automatically approve requests and settle disputes manually as they come up (i.e. someone sniped your game’s name and their game has nothing to do with it)
Maybe it could be a RBXDev feature, that only members of the forum can use? It seems like it would stop a lot of problems, people here are a lot less likely to snipe others’ names than if they offered it to every user. Another thing they could do is have the URLs expire after a certain amount of time? i.e. if the linked game hasn’t been updated in a few months, they lose the URL
The devforum is a private community – it would be unfair to exclusivize features to ourselves. There are plenty of other alternatives, so I don’t see why we would ever do this.
It is a private community, but it’s pretty easy to get in now, unlike a couple of years ago. It has turned from an elite club to a forum that all developers who make original content can participate in. The biggest alternative seems to be having to apply for the URL, which is kind of a waste of resources.
Regardless of how easy it is to get in, some users still aren’t in here despite having successful games, and they would be unfairly locked out of the feature
We have had people kicked out of the devforums (more than you’d think) in the past, so it means our review process isn’t perfect – especially moreso now that we’re more lenient in accepting new users. Just because you’re in the devforums doesn’t mean you’re a good person who wouldn’t abuse features
The amount of resources used to review vanity URLs would be negligible, as we’d likely have to review them already to make sure they’re appropriate for ROBLOX.
