Methods and systems for optimizing data structures to efficiently control network data transfers are provided. For example, the method includes determining common key type sets from a plurality of network processing rules; creating one or more hash data structures using the most common key type sets; programming network processing rules that use the most common key type sets into the one or more hash data structures; programming remaining network processing rules into a content addressable memory (CAM); and using the one or more hash data structures and the CAM to find an appropriate network processing rule to process a network packet.