I assume everyone who wants a Google+ (G+) account now has one, so this is just a quick shout out for the sciencebase circle. I’m trying to keep up with the people adding me to their circles, if you want me to reciprocate, message, comment or email me to let me know you’re on there – sciencebase.com/+.

Ooh..what’s that cute sciencebase+ link all about then and how did you create it?

Well, the standard G+ link for a profile page is awful – https://plus.google.com/u/0/114520811053457424775/ – looks like a Swiss bank account number or something. A nice, short vanity URL would be much better and if you have your own web domain, with access to your redirects “.htaccess” file (usually via yourdomain.com/cpanel), then you can just add a redirect to send any link you like to any other page. I’ve done this with Facebook and Twitter accounts previously so that, sciencebase.com/facebook and sciencebase.com/twitter redirect to the appropriate pages. This is the obvious extension of that to G+. Just add a line like this to the .htaccess file in the root folder of your domain; back it up before making changes, won’t you?

“redirect 301 /+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/114520811053457424775/” – without the quotes and using your G+ ID. The link is then yourdomain/+ and it will redirect to your G+ page.

If you think that looks a bit sparse, you could do it like this instead:

“redirect 301 /Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/114520811053457424775/” – again, w/o the quotes and using your ID.

If you don’t have access to .htaccess, then you can use a third-party service to redirect a vanity URL of this form: http://gplus.to/sciencebase to your G+ page. I had considered doing this before seeing this post on the same subject, but Cute Machine explains the concept well, so credit, where credit’s due. Do join me on G+ and let me know if I should add you to my “circles”.