A content delivery network may provide content items to requesting devices using a popularity-based distribution hierarchy. A central analysis system may determine popularity data for a content item stored in a first caching device. The central analysis system may determine that a change in the popularity data is beyond a threshold value. The central analysis system may then transmit an instruction to move the content item from the first caching device to a second caching device in a different tier of caching devices than the first caching device. The central analysis system may update a content index to indicate that the content item has been moved to the second caching device. A user device may be redirected to request the content item directly from the second caching device.