A content file purge mechanism for a content delivery network (CDN) is described. A Web-enabled portal is used by CDN customers to enter purge requests securely. A purge request identifies one or more content files to be purged. The purge request is pushed over a secure link from the portal to a purge server, which validates purge requests from multiple CDN customers and batches the requests into an aggregate purge request. The aggregate purge request is pushed from the purge server to a set of staging servers. Periodically, CDN content servers poll the staging servers to determine whether an aggregate purge request exists. If so, the CDN content servers obtain the aggregate purge request and process the request to remove the identified content files from their local storage.