Facebook graph API not respecting aliases

Question

I have a list of URLs of Facebook Pages that I'd like to collect basic metadata from (likes etc).

Most of the time, given a URL:

https://www.facebook.com/cocacola

I can simply fetch the corresponding graph URL:

https://graph.facebook.com/cocacola

Unfortunately, this breaks down for pages whose name has changed:

http://www.facebook.com/bebestores (redirects to https://www.facebook.com/bebe)

The resulting graph URL:

http://graph.facebook.com/bebestores

returns:

{
   "error": {
      "message": "(#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: bebestores",
      "type": "OAuthException",
      "code": 803
   }
}

Can I have the Facebook Graph API follow this redirect, or do I need to hit the public website to check whether my URL redirects?

Aviram Segal Aviram Segal · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-24T10:56:24

The best thing to do is use the page id, this never changes.

For bebe the id is 46215732881 so you can always get the information by using http://graph.facebook.com/46215732881 and not worry about the name changing.

Another option is to provide the full URL:

http://graph.facebook.com/http://www.facebook.com/bebestores

I would use this url to get the id and use the id after that.

Facebook graph API not respecting aliases

1 Answers