Patent ID: 8005889

Claim:
A method of synchronizing a digital photo album at a peer server with a proxy server in a photosharing peer-to-peer network, wherein the proxy server is configured to serve content from the photo album at the peer server when the peer server is offline, the method comprising: receiving a request from a peer server to synchronize image files of a photo album at the peer server with image files cached on the proxy server, wherein the request includes a URL for the photo album; directing a web robot to crawl the URL of the photo album, wherein the web robot is configured to identify image files at the peer server that are not cached on the proxy server, and to request the identified image files from the peer server via the proxy server; in response to the request, receiving, at the proxy server, the identified image files from the peer server; determining, by the proxy server, that the request was initiated by the web robot and wherein in response to the determination the proxy server does not provide the identified image files requested by the web robot to the web robot; and caching the identified image files on the proxy server.