In some instances, it could be advantageous to return different IP addresses for a query relating to a domain name. Conventional methods for returning different IP addresses for a given query include modifying the authoritative DNS server. However, such modifications do not scale well and increase the complexity of the system. To address this problem, a proxy server configured for intelligent DNS forwarding is disclosed. DNS queries from an end user are forwarded to the authoritative DNS server via the proxy server. Responses from the authoritative DNS servers include metadata with embedded policies and rules defined by customers. The proxy server processes the metadata by executing the embedded policies and rules, looking up network resources based on the embedded rules, and determining an optimal IP address based on the look up data and embedded policies. This optimal IP address is sent to the end user in response to the query.