Patent ID: 7293093

Claim:
A method operative in a content delivery network (CDN) wherein participating content providers identify content to be served from a set of CDN content servers in response to DNS queries that are resolved through a domain name service managed by a CDN service provider (CDNSP), wherein the domain name service is authoritative only for given content domains associated with the participating content providers, comprising: responsive to an end-user request for a web page that is directed to a participating content provider domain, using a CDNSP-specific domain to cue the domain name service, wherein the domain name service then resolves the CDNSP-specific domain to identify a CDN content server; determining whether a default markup language file associated with the web page exists on the CDN content server identified by the domain name service; and if the default markup language file exists on the CDN content server identified by the domain name service, serving the default markup language file in response to the end-user request for the web page, and logging data associated with the default markup language file served; if the default markup language file does not exist on the CDN content server identified by the domain name service, directing a request for the default markup language file to a second server, receiving the default markup language file at the CDN content server, serving the default markup language file in response to the end-user request for the web page, and logging data associated with the default markup language file served.