{"id":1068,"date":"2021-03-10T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-10T14:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sniply.io\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2021-05-13T22:40:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T22:40:46","slug":"under-the-hood-the-story-behind-the-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sniply.io\/blog\/under-the-hood-the-story-behind-the-links\/","title":{"rendered":"Under the Hood: the Story Behind the Links"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here at Sniply<\/a> we manage our thousands of user\u2019s links and work hard to make sure that people clicking Sniply links have a fast, seamless experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the cornerstones of the Sniply experience are the short snip.ly\/abc links that we generate for you to share.  Let\u2019s take a quick moment to dissect what goes into one of these links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, you\u2019ll notice that sniply links are based on the snip.ly domain.  We chose snip.ly as our domain not only because it\u2019s extremely catchy (right!?) but because it\u2019s short and concise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, we have the Unique Link Identifier code (\u2018abc\u2019 in the above link example).  This uniquely identifies your link against the hundreds of thousands of other sniply links that have ever been created.  Sniply link identifier codes currently are composed of three characters from a set of 62 possibilities (26 uppercase letters + 26 lowercase letters + the 10 numbers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When looking at how many unique sniply\u2019s can exist under these parameters we can calculate it using a simple math formula:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

number of unique links possible = (number of characters in option pool) ^ (number of characters in link code)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the current system that means we can have 238, 328 possible different sniply links (62^3).  Once we start approaching this threshold, look for us to do one of two things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n