EasyWeb Services35 min

Design a URL Shortener

Design a service like TinyURL or bit.ly that shortens long URLs into compact links.

GoogleAmazonMicrosoftMeta

Functional Requirements

Given a long URL, generate a short unique alias
When users access the short URL, redirect to the original
Links can optionally expire after a default timespan
High availability and low latency for redirection
Analytics: track click counts per short URL

Steps (0/6)

Step 1: Clarify Requirements & Scope

Start by asking clarifying questions. How many URLs per day? What's the read vs write ratio? Do we need custom aliases? Should links expire? What about analytics? Typical numbers: 100M new URLs/day, read-heavy (100:1 ratio), ~10B redirections/day.

Key Points

Write: ~100M URLs/day → ~1200/sec
Read: ~10B redirections/day → ~115K/sec
Storage: 100M × 365 × 5 years × 500 bytes ≈ 91 TB
Read-heavy system, optimize for reads

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