Disclosed is a system and method for implementing a distributed network system, such as the World Wide Web, in which distributed location services are utilized and include a collection of server processes that map from resource identifiers to a resource's controlling server. In addition, distributed location services provide an architecture for assigning resource identifiers and set of protocols for accessing server processes. The server processes are logically defined to provide a more flexible system. Each of these logical server processes are an abstraction which provides the external view of the server. The logical server processes may be implemented by different numbers of physical processes running on different machines at different points in time.