Techniques are disclosed for constructing web (or other networked) documents as parameterized forms of other networked documents. For example, a document may be represented as a collection of changes to be applied to a first document which is incorporated by reference in the second document. Instead of delivering the entire document over a slower network connecting the content server to the content browser, the document is delivered as a collection of changes to previously delivered documents that are much closer to the user's content browser. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, special software is not necessarily required at the end user for reconstructing the second document from the set of base documents and the set of modifications to the base documents.