Why it matters

URL shortener is classic design problem. Understanding shapes many similar problems.

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The architecture

Encoding: base62 of ID.

Storage: KV store (short → long).

Redirect: 301/302.

URL shortener designEncode IDbase62KV storageshort → longRedirect301 permanent or 302Read-heavy: cache aggressively; consistent low latency
Shortener flow.
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How it works end to end

ID generation: distributed (Snowflake) or DB sequence.

Storage: Redis + persistent (DB or S3).

Analytics: separate pipeline for click tracking.

Custom aliases: reserve popular.