Patent ID: 7496651

Claim:
A method, comprising: storing Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)-allocated first address prefix information and corresponding IANA-designated first geographic region information; storing second address prefix information and corresponding second geographic region information; for network addresses that have first address prefix information that matches the second address prefix information, associating these network addresses to the second geographic region information, which is different from said corresponding IANA-designated first geographic region information; and selecting one of said network addresses associated to the second geographic region information as an optimum address to provide to a query from a client having a network address that corresponds to the second geographic region information, the method further comprising for each of the network addresses: determining whether the network address is a real or virtual address; if the network address is determined to be a real address, determining whether the real address matches the second address prefix information; if the real address matches the second address prefix information, updating geographic location information associated with the real address with the second geographic region information; and if the network address is determined to be a virtual address: finding a site address associated with the virtual address; determining whether the site address matches the second address prefix information; and if the site address matches the second address prefix information, updating geographic location information associated with the virtual address to the second geographic region information.