Patent ID: 7082476

Claim:
A method of optimizing retrieval of electronic documents, comprising the computer-implemented steps of: receiving and routing network packets; extracting a first electronic document from the network packets; identifying one or more symbolic references to other electronic documents within the first electronic document; determining a network address of each of the other electronic documents corresponding to each of the symbolic references; creating and storing a modified copy of the first electronic document in which the network address is substituted for each corresponding symbolic reference in accordance with one or more substitution policies; delivering the modified copy of the first electronic document in response to all subsequent client requests for the first electronic document, thereby greatly reducing the required number of network address lookup operations; wherein the step of determining a network address of each of the other electronic documents corresponding to each of the symbolic references comprises load balancing by the steps of successively selecting a different one of a plurality of pre-determined network addresses of a plurality of servers for substitution for successive identical symbolic references.