I didn't understand this UI at first. URL shorteners are very common and they always have the same UI: Enter long URL, get short URL. This UI has an extra step

I didn't understand this UI at first. URL shorteners are very common and they always have the same UI: Enter long URL, get short URL. This UI has an extra step that is small and somewhat hidden, so I kept missing it and wondering why nothing was happening. Once I get past that, how am I supposed to find a unique URL? All obvious combinations have already been taken. It seems like it would be better to generate a short URL based on words in the destination page's title or something. That way the server can take responsibility for generating something unique, short, and memorable. Finally, it seems disingenuous to market this as "shortest URLs on earth". Only until all the short ones that are easy to guess get taken. If you want to guarantee that users get the shortest URLs possible, it would be better to generate them - that way you can use all possible strings. Other (mostly terrible) ideas for guaranteeing "shortest URLs on Earth": * Buy lots of short domains, so that you can use the short combinations on all of them. * Expire the short URLs. Charge extra for permanent ones. The expired ones can be reused. * Make the short URLs language-specific and vary depending on the request language.