Introduction
A URL shortener is a service that is used to create short links from very long URLs. Usually, short links have the size of one-third or even one-fourth of the original URL, which makes them easier to type, present, or tweet. Clicking on a short link user will be automatically redirected to the original URL.
There are many URL shortening services available online, such as tiny.cc, bitly.com, and cutt.ly. Implementing a URL shortening service is not a complex task, and it is often part of system design interviews. In this post, I will try to explain the process of implementing the service.
How a URL Shortening Application Works
Introduction
Typically, a long URL is a system-generated URL, usually containing multiple query parameters that may be encrypted/encoded to mask those parameters. The need for shortened URLs arises when long URLs have to be shared for various purposes, like sharing links via SMSs, Emails, media types, like Twitter or WhatsApp, etc.
A URL shortening service might sound like a simple service at first, but it poses a very interesting and challenging engineering problem. Please pause here and think about how you could design a system to generate an infinite number of short URLs for possibly all long URLs in the world. The interesting part of the problem is generating unique, random identifiers for these long URLs. The identifiers should be short enough to fit in the URL with an acceptable character set.