- Question for Bluesky people - if I want to setup a custom domain name for one of my handles on here, will the previous handle and URL still work? Or can it be redirected? I have so many links pointing to the previous URL to find & follow. But if I change it, that URL won't work anymore right?
- at_proto will not redirect from one to the other. So what I did was I made sure to put a placeholder in Safaya.bsky.social to ensure someone else doesn't claim it. What this means is that you will have to re-register your bsky.social account immediately.
- Yeah this is what I was thinking - save the old handle as backup and change the current one. Frustrating because of course everything is already pointing to the current page and yet it won't work anymore after - and they want everyone to use their own domains for verification. Ugh.
- it's not so much "saving" the old handle... Your current account "Alex Billington" can change handles and keep content. (All my content, followers, etc., stayed with this account when I repointed to my DNS.) THEN you have to re-create the bsky.social account if you want to keep others from using it.
- Well right I'm "saving" the old handle from being used by someone else. And all external links and everything will still point to this old handle. They really need to setup some way to have the domain be a mask over an existing handle so you keep both but also can still use a specific domain anyway.
- But that would defy the purpose of DNS validation entirely, because it implies that you can spoof DNS. It's not to be thought of as a "vanity URL". Someone can do a WHOIS on cinemalogue.com and they would know I am the registrant b/c only the registrant can edit the TXT record.
- Not really. I'm just saying it's a bad way to verify right now - especially when I have to give up the old account. Then anyone could get that account and pretend it's me and gain the followers from anyone who clicks the old links. It's actually way worse this way (for verification).
- Except it gets complicated … I find more than 20 real Alex Billingtons in LinkedIn so how can they restrict accounts like that? There’s no real way to know you are you by an arbitrarily acquired ID. The only better thing would be a public key type of ID but that is precisely what your DNS is.
- Right but my point is that verification shouldn't be based simply on using your own domain. That's as much of a vanity handle (on here) as choosing whatever handle you want in the BSky network. I want quick & easy verification but not like this. It just doesn't work. First big mistake they've made.Apr 28, 2025 20:28
- I think it is intended to encourage rapid growth of the professional community. Either you have a url or you work for a company that does. They’ve launched another type of verification to replace the way it used to work on X. I think that’s sufficient enough.
- Fair enough. Really appreciate the candid convo on this. Will try and figure out what to do for now.
- Happy to help any way I can. Hey, ANYTHING is better than X... Bluesky has evolved very rapidly and has some features I haven't even leveraged yet, e.g. custom building my own feeds, etc. I'm glad you're here.
