How much do channel URLs matter?

[Peter]

I understand where @LyfeWithDragons is coming from, especially about looking professional but personally I don't think your URL matters that much. 99% of the time people are going to search for your username or watch your videos from their subscribtion feed, just think about it, how many times do you go to a channel by typing in its URL? I'm saying this from personal experience because I was in the same situation like @TheUnicornScribe, I started posting on a channel that I set up years before and didn't think I would stick with it so my URL is different from my channel name but I think I'm doing just fine. It's up to you whether you want to make a new channel or not though, this is just my opinion.

 

[Ian W.]

Haha, I know. I was just being more direct to her question, that's all.

Yeah I get it, branding is important! But the URL in particular wouldn't worry me too much although it's handy to have it all be the same for marketing reasons both in the beginning and in the future should her channel get "Big". I wouldn't fuss about it too much if it were me! I'm supeeeeer tired though, must... sleeeeeeeefawebaaaaegththkkkk.

 

[LyfeWithDragons]

Well luckily my current URL is merely "nightwings99" so hopefully not quite that extreme XD But in this case my URL is pretty random considering I don't have "nightwings" or "99" anywhere in my channel name. So I think it's best I change channels now before I start posting a lot and regret it later.

Well, good luck!

 

[WolfWraith]

It's very important to branding and marketing. It makes it much easier for people to find you if they stumbled on your channel before, it creates less confusion between the channel name and URL. Make sure the next URL you pick is also a URL available on other social media sites, primarily Facebook, Twitter & Tumblr and whatever else you might use, although that's sort of optional.

 

[Wastelander]

@WolfWraith put it pretty clearly, and I have nothing more to add to that. OP should seriously create a gameplan for themselves, put more focus on branding and then create a new channel.

 

[EmilyJM]

I made a new channel because my old URL was not good and I wanted my branding to be all neat and tidy I guess.

 

[The Casual Gamer]

I think at some point in past versions of YouTube, you could actually manually change the URL of your channel, but I think you could only do this once. I may be thinking of something else. I'm not entirely sure they matter for people who are using YouTube as a platform for a hobby. I only chose mine because the automatically assigned one was bugging me.