Amazon S3 Supports 301 Redirects

Amazon S3 is already a very robust platform for hosting simple websites. If all you need for your site is CSS, HTML, and some Javascript, S3 can handle your site without any of the headaches of administering a web server. I have a few rarely updated sites that are perfect for this model, except I need to be able to redirect some legacy URLs. Redirection is now possible, thanks to an update from Amazon Web Services.

Configuring A Redirect

There are two ways to configure a website redirect. You can do it programatically using the Amazon S3 API, which is handy if you’re already managing a site through the API. I’m guessing this functionality will also be exposed in updates to software like Cloudberry S3 Explorer Pro.

For the rest of us who are probably treating S3 hosting more like a dumbed down server, you can also configure a redirect directly from the Amazon S3 management console. To access the redirect functionality:

• Select the Amazon S3 bucket hosting your website from the management console.
• Right-click on the page or file you want to redirect and select Properties. On the Metadata tab, click Add more metadata.
• In the Key: dropdown menu choose Website Redirect Location and enter the URL you want to redirect to in the “Value:” input box. Click the Save button to activate the redirect.

A file hosted by Amazon S3 can be redirected to either another file hosted on Amazon S3 or to an external URL.

It’s important to note that S3 currently treats all redirects as a 301 permanent redirect, so you can’t temporarily point one resource in S3 to another resource. Search engines will see the page as permanently moved to the new location.