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Dumb question: I understand how URL shorteners work (hash the URL) however, how do they make money?
by buggy_code 17y ago
Dumb question:
I understand how URL shorteners work (hash the URL)
however, how do they make money?
- chaosmachine 17y agoI've read that some modify destination URLs to include their affiliate code (links to amazon.com, for example).
- aditya 17y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=508278 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=508278 Really, really good discussion there.
- thorax 17y agoEven better discussion if you read the entire topic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=508132 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=508132
- poutine 17y agoIt's not actually a hash of the URL, rather it's typically simply a base 64 serial number that increments for each new URL. That's why the URLs start at 2 characters and grow to 4 or 5, though the number is so large that they'll rarely see 6. http://tr.im http://tr.im (my weapon of choice) for instance is still at 4 characters.