How to Fix Old S3 Redirect Issues on AWS

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If you’ve recently removed a website redirect from an Amazon S3 bucket but are still seeing the old redirect, it can be confusing. Here’s a simple step-by-step guide to help you clear out the old content and get your new site live without any redirect issues:

First, verify that you’ve completely deleted the S3 bucket associated with the old redirect. Make sure all the A records pointing to the old setup are removed from your DNS settings. Also, check that any CloudFront distributions and SSL certificates linked to that old site are deleted. This way, you’re starting fresh without leftovers from the previous setup.

Next, double-check your DNS settings to ensure they no longer point to the old bucket or distribution. Sometimes, DNS changes take some time to propagate, so be patient if you just made these updates. You can use online tools to confirm your DNS records are correctly updated.

After DNS is settled, open your browser and visit the domain. If you still see a 404 error with a message indicating a missing key, this suggests that AWS might be caching old responses. Cloudflare, if you’re using it, or other CDN services might also cache redirects or web content.

To fix this, clear your browser cache first. Then, if you’ve used a CDN like CloudFront, go into your AWS Management Console, find your CloudFront distribution, and request a cache invalidation. This process tells the CDN to fetch the latest version of your content from your S3 bucket instead of serving outdated cached data.

Finally, give it a few minutes for the cache to refresh across all services. Refresh your website again, and check if the redirect is gone and your new site loads correctly.

If you follow these steps—deleting old resources, updating DNS, clearing caches, and invalidating CDN content—you should be able to resolve the redirect issue and see your new website without any trouble.