Patent attributes
A pattern-based content request routing system is described herein that can route content requests according to user and/or user device behavior. For example, the routing system can cause requests for byte-heavy content to be routed to content delivery networks (CDNs) that have a sufficiently large cache width—even if such CDNs are not the geographically-closest CDNs to the source of the requests—to reduce the negative impact on content retrieval latency for other user devices that may be requesting other content. In particular, CDNs may store access logs that indicate the types of content requested by various user devices. The routing system can retrieve and analyze the access logs to identify patterns of requests. The routing system can then evaluate the properties of various CDNs, determine which CDNs may be suitable for the identified patterns of requests, and instruct a DNS server to route user devices accordingly.