Before Facebook's vanity URL land grab, I speculated that it would be a major SEO boost and could result in an additional 275m monthly visits. Just three days after Facebook's URL release (9:01pm pst on Friday), the SEO benefits are clear (and immediate).
I secured the URL facebook.com/ryanspoon. Before Friday, my Facebook profile ranked 7th on Google for "ryan spoon". Now, Facebook has moved into the 5th result. Not only is this just three days after the URL launch, but Google is still showing the old, unoptimized URL in the search results (see below)... so there is much room to improve:
Relatedly, I received a Google alert for my domain ("ryanspoon") this evening and two things are of note:
1. The alert is of my Facebook profile... suggesting that Google is actively and intelligently crawling Facebook (and Facebook is delivering data feeds)
2. The alert links to the vanity URL (unlike the SEO results)
Also interesting, Google has a special treatment for Facebook listings - including my network and the names of a few of my friends. Google could go further and link to those friends directly, reveal recent activity (ie status updates) and so forth:
