url-shortening interview questions
Top url-shortening frequently asked interview questions
When you enter a URL into a tweet, Twitter uses their own in house URL shortener on the t.co domain to turn it into something smaller and track usage.
My site has recently been Tweeted by somebody popular (several thousand extra hits in one day) and it appears the referrer for this influx is a t.co URL.
How can I find what Tweet contained that URL?
Searching for the URL or it's parts on both Twitter and Google have turned up nothing.
Source: (StackOverflow)
Recently when posting links I've found Twitter has no longer offered to automatically shorten URLs; they used to be shortened to a max of 20 characters just when I pasted them into the tweet box. Now they take as many characters as the full URL.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I want to post an URL in Twitter, but I don't want it to be shortened - the domain is a 3 letter word so it doesn't even make sense to shorten it. However, when I am writing the tweet in the website I see the message "Link will appear shortened" and I don't find an option to disable that.
Source: (StackOverflow)
What is the purpose of shortening URL service?
Are shortening URL service related only to the fact that a single Twitter message has a small characters limits? Or does they have other uses?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I was wondering: is it possible for other people to find out who created a short goo.gl URL (that I created using my own Google account)? That is, can they trace it back to my Google account?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Say I want to find all tweets that link to a particular blog post, such as this one, and considering that most tweets would actually use URL shorteners, is there a way to find those tweets, taking into account the tweet might contain the original URL or any of the shortened URLs?
Source: (StackOverflow)
They've basically taken over the URL shortening game, but without offering the features the other shorteners do. For instance, http://is.gd allows you to set a setting which will show you the link you're being sent to, allowing you to click through after you've checked it out.
t.co seems to require me to blindly follow links, even though they've obscured what the link is.
Source: (StackOverflow)
Does it matter which URL shortening web service you use when shortening URLs? Why will one choose, say TinyUrl over any other?
And is their a lifespan for the shortened URL, will there be a guarantee that it will always be available after it is created?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Do bit.ly and other URL shorteners reutilize unused short URLs? It seems the be so.
Is there any risk that an URL that is redirected to a certain page right now, be redirected to another page in the future?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Google has a shortening service at http://goo.gl/ which let's you convert a long URL to a short one. It says the following about the URLs it generates:
All goo.gl URLs and click analytics are public and can be accessed by anyone.
I understand that the URLs are not private. However, the above does not specify the difference between a publicized, sequential, or secret URL. Below I will define what I mean by each of these terms. Notice how their definitions make them mutually exclusive. Which of these, then, best describes what goo.gl uses?
Say I use goo.gl and get the URL http://goo.gl/abc57.
Publicizing:
If Google has a page such as http://goo.gl/list-all which has all of the URLs that have been generated, then I would consider that to be publicizing the URL. Or if there were a page that listed URLs by category, or by number of visits, etc. that would also be considered publicizing the URL. If Google has an API that lets people access this information, then I would also consider that publicizing the URL.
Sequential:
If Google distributes URLs in a sequential manner, then it is really easy to get a list such as the publicized version above. For example, if someone got the URL http://goo.gl/abc58, they could enter in the previous URL, http://goo.gl/abc57, and easily see the link I just generated. If it is both sequential and publicized, publicized would trump this definition, since it's much easier to use the publicized page than randomly looking through a sequence.
Secret:
The URLs Google generates are random enough to not be sequential (i.e. so it's not easy to guess them), and they are not publicized anywhere. Therefore, while it is possible that someone could access the link I just generated, it's not probable since it would involve pure chance. In other words, I can assume that when I generate a goo.gl URL no one will know about it unless the URL is specifically shared with them.
Private:
These would be links that can only be accessed by people you intend to share the URL with. (E.g. it may require a login and password). Google's service is obviously not a private one, since it states that above.
Notes:
- There is a page that lists all of your generated URLs. If you are the only one that can view this page, that would not necessarily mean that the service is publicized. If there is any way for someone else to view these details (e.g. via an API), that means that the service is publicized; unless it is very difficult to view this page (e.g. they need a secret ID associated with your account which they can't easily get unless you give it to them).
Source: (StackOverflow)
Now that Twitter automatically shortens urls with its t.co service, 3rd party services like bit.ly / j.mp have become somewhat superfluous (for Twitter use).
However, bit.ly provides nice click stats for each shortened link (example). Is there anything similar available for t.co shortened links? (I've tried the bit.ly way of appending + to the url to get to the info/stats page, but that, at least, does not work.)
Source: (StackOverflow)