Capacity-independent demand assessment

Systems and methods are described to enable assessment of demand for points of presence (POPs) within a content delivery system, independent of the capacity of such POPs. The content delivery system can utilize load balancing technology to distribute user requests for content to various POPs, based at least partly on the capacity of the POPs. Because load balancing generally occurs prior to a user's connection to a POP, the monitored load of individual POPs may not accurately reflect user demand for the individual POPs services. Accordingly, systems and methods are disclosed to correlate pre-load-balancing requests, such as DNS requests, with post-load-balancing demand levels. Thereafter, the determined correlation can be utilized to assess user demand for individual POPs, independent of the observed load on that individual POP. In some instances, POPs or other network components can be clustered to determine capacity-independent demand for a collection of POPs.