Twitter URL shortening not deterministic

twitterurlurl-shortening

These two Twitter shortened URLs

  1. https://t.co/A8taVSsehm
  2. https://t.co/eA7EpUqmgJ

both refer to the same target URL:

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/audi-chef-rupert-stadler-festgenommen-a-1213533.html

I wonder, why that is. Would it not be more reasonable for Twitter to have only one shortened URL per target URL?

Best Answer

Since Twitter measures each Tweet's activity including link clicks, a short link needs to be specific to a Tweet. Therefore the same URL can have different short links.

Here is an explanation from Twitter:

Why does Twitter have its own link shortener?

  1. Our link service measures information such as how many times a link has been clicked, which is an important quality signal in determining how relevant and interesting each Tweet is when compared to similar Tweets.
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