The announcement was clear and from now on, one would find a banner will appear over the next few weeks to administrators at the top of their App Profile Page. The note has been transcribed as below:
Removing App Profile Pages
By February 1, 2012, we are removing App Profile Pages. You can migrate Likes and the Vanity URL of this Page to an existing Facebook Page with the same name and Product/App category.
Click here to migrate to an existing Facebook Page
In looks, App Profile Pages, are very similar in appearance to normal Pages. They are even automatically generated. But apart from it, there are rare similarities between the two. There are inconsistencies between the two, when one notes the difference in Insights, APIs, and distribution channels, that have become more apparent.
Facebook seems to be hating this difference and instead has decided that they are too much of a pain to maintain, and is killing them off.
This announcement makes it clear that it should not be deemed as just an update, but a warning. This means that if one does not act before February 1, 2012, their App Profile Page will be deleted and Facebook will send all App Profile Page traffic directly to your app. Moreover, if one searches for their app on Facebook, the result for it should already take them directly to their app rather than its App Profile Page.
What can one do then before February 1, 2012? An administrator of an administrator of an eligible Facebook Page, one would be prompted with the option to transfer Likes to this Page. The only condition they will have to comply with is that the Facebook Page has to have same name as the app and be in the same Product/App category. This would be a sensible thing to do, as transferring likes will help the admins to publish updates to these users from one’s Facebook Page.
For the time frame, it is presumed that the Like migration could take up to seven days. But that is not all as one might have to wait several hours before you see any new activity on the Page. It is even important to note that once the migrate button is clicked, the App Profile Page will be deleted directly.
Talking about the Vanity URL associated with one’s App Profile Page, the social networking giant will transfer it to the Page so long as one doesn’t already exist for it.
Facebook even made it clear that the transfer process will have only likes. If a user want to keep other content from the page such as, photos, posts, Insights, and any other material that one wants to keep, it needs to be download and re-uploaded manually.