Abstract Algorithms

url shortener

3 articles across 3 sub-topics

ID Generation Strategies in System Design: Base62, UUID, Snowflake, and Beyond

TLDR: Short shareable IDs need Base62 (URL shorteners). Database primary keys at scale need time-ordered IDs (Snowflake, UUID v7). Security tokens need random IDs (UUID v4, NanoID). Picking the wrong strategy either causes B-tree fragmentation at 50M...

Apr 5, 2026•23 min read

Architecture(1)

System Design HLD Example: URL Shortener (TinyURL and Bitly)

TLDR: A URL shortener is a read-heavy system (100:1 ratio) that maps long URLs to short, unique aliases. The core scaling challenge is generating unique IDs without database contention—solved using a Range-Based ID Generator or a Distributed Counter ...

Mar 13, 2026•16 min read

Database(1)

LLD for URL Shortener: Designing TinyURL

TLDR TLDR: A URL Shortener maps long URLs to short IDs. The core challenge is generating a globally unique, short, collision-free ID at scale. We use Base62 encoding on auto-incrementing database IDs for deterministic, collision-free short codes. ...

Mar 9, 2026•21 min read