The present application is directed towards systems and methods for a user to configure the backup locations to use by an intermediary device providing Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) services when a primary location is down. In some embodiments, when GSLB is based on static proximity of the location of the client to the GSLB sites and if the primary location is DOWN, then request may be load balanced among all the other locations. But this may not be desirable in many cases. So we need to provide option to the user to specify the preferred list of backup locations to service a client request. The present solution achieves this configurability by using a GSLB policy based on preferred location. One can configure preferred location(s) via a GSLB policy to redirect the client to preferred location(x). One can configure individual policies for different client locations. Based on implementation requirements, one can configure country level granularity, state level granularity and so on.