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Nirmit Kotadiya
Nirmit Kotadiya

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URL Shortener System Design: How to Build a Scalable System

URL shorteners seem simple, but designing one at scale introduces several interesting engineering challenges.

In this guide, we explore:

  • How URL shortening works
  • Unique short code generation
  • Database and API design
  • Caching for fast redirects
  • Scalability and system trade-offs

This is a useful system design problem for developers preparing for technical interviews and learning backend architecture.

📚 Read the complete guide:

URL Shortener System Design

What would you choose for generating unique short URLs: Base62 encoding, hashing, or another approach?

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