Patent ID: 7747772

Claim:
A method for allowing a client to guide selection of a content object source, the method performed on a client computer, comprising steps of: identifying a first and a second source, wherein at least the first source being capable of requesting a content object from an originating source in response to an earlier request for the content object of the client; analyzing transfer quality between the client and the first source, and between the client and the second source, the analyzing the transfer quality including analyzing a churn rate, wherein the churn rate is an amount of time unused data remains in a cache and is indicative of loading of the cache, and performing at least one of traceroute, test via file transfer, server health check, server load check, ping, path difference, BGP routing information, or port response time; ranking the first and the second sources based on the analyzed transfer qualities; and using the ranking to guide selection of the content object source, whereby the selected content object source is one of the first source, the second source, or a third source.