Скачать или смотреть 🔗 Designing a URL Shortener Service | How a URL Shortener Works

This document outlines the design of a URL shortening service, similar to TinyURL, breaking down the process into sequential steps. It begins by establishing the problem scope through clarifying questions, including traffic volume and character allowance for short URLs. The text then moves into back-of-the-envelope estimations for storage and operation loads over a decade. The core of the design involves proposing high-level architectural components, such as API endpoints for both shortening and redirecting URLs, and critically comparing 301 versus 302 redirects. Finally, the document examines the detailed design of the data model and the hash function, favoring a base 62 conversion method for generating short URLs from unique IDs and optimizing performance through caching for URL redirection.