System Design 102 - URL Shorteners
What is a URL Shortener?
p. “These shorter versions are particularly handy in contexts where character count matters, such as Twitter, or when you want a memorable or neat URL.”
Hash-Based Shortening
p. “A hash function like MD5 is used to generate a fixed-length hash of the original URL. This hash is then truncated to create a short URL.”
Counter-Based Encoding (Bijective)
p. “When a URL is submitted, it’s stored in the database, and the unique ID from the database is converted into a unique URL-friendly string.”
Character and timestamp Encoding
p. “This method generates unique short URLs for each long URL, even if requested within short time intervals.”