Patent ID: 8577997

Claim:
Service provider system for delivering text, graphics, images, downloads, audio or video on behalf of multiple content providers, comprising: a set of content servers distributed across multiple network locations, including at least one third party network location; a set of name servers distributed across multiple network locations, each name server comprising software executing in a hardware element; a first name server of the set of name servers that responds to a first domain name service (DNS) query to a hostname to issue a first response that includes a first set of one or more IP addresses, the first DNS query originating from a first local DNS name server and including at least a portion of an IP address of a machine associated with the first local DNS name server; a second name server of the set of name servers that responds to a second DNS query to the hostname to issue a second response that differs from the first response and that includes a second set of one or more IP addresses, the second DNS query originating from a second local DNS name server and including at least a portion of an IP address of a machine associated with the second local DNS name server; wherein the first name server is located in proximity to a first subset of content servers corresponding to the first set of one or more IP addresses, the second name server being located in proximity to a second subset of content servers corresponding to the second set of one or more IP addresses.