A content delivery network is enhanced to provide for delivery of cacheable markup
language content files such as HTML. To support HTML delivery, the content provider
provides the CDNSP with an association of the content provider's domain name (e.g.,
www.customer.com) to an origin server domain name (e.g., html.customer.com) at
which one or more default HTML files are published and hosted. The CDNSP provides
its customer with a CDNSP-specific domain name. The content provider, or an entity
on its behalf, then implements DNS entry aliasing (e.g., a CNAME of the host to
the CDNSP-specific domain) so that domain name requests for the host cue the CDN
DNS request routing mechanism. This mechanism then identifies a best content server
to respond to a request directed to the customer's domain. The CDN content server
returns a default HTML file if such file is cached; otherwise, the CDN content
server directs a request for the file to the origin server to retrieve the file,
after which the file is cached on the CDN content server for subsequent use in
servicing other requests. The content provider is also provided with log files
of CDNSP-delivered HTML.