To avoid caching issues, consider adding a unique query parameter to the stylesheet URL, either using JavaScript or server-side code. This will not alter the loaded CSS file but will prompt browsers to fetch it anew since the URL appears different.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://example.com/style.css?version=5678">

To ensure your application always loads the latest version, you can create a class with a GetVersion method that returns important details like the application version or build number.

For an asp.net application, you can then include something similar to the following in your markup:

<script src="Scripts/some.js?version=<%= Common.GetVersion%>" type="text/javascript"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/styles/Style.css?version=<%= Common.GetVersion%>" />

This approach will prompt the browser to reload files because a part of the URL to static files changes with each build or version update.

To prevent caching: Place dynamic strings at the end of the css path, like this:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css?2021-05-12:15 45 20"/>

Update upon version changes:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css?v=2.0.1"/>

If you're developing with Chrome as your primary browser, there are two ways to approach this:

1) By pressing and holding the reload page button for a moment, a menu will pop up allowing you to perform a hard refresh of the page.

2) Within the Inspector settings, you have the option to instruct the browser not to cache files.

In my opinion, it is more convenient, quicker, and less cumbersome to address this caching issue by disabling it in the browser rather than configuring it on the server side.

When exploring the ASP.net tag in relation to Maxim Kornilov's answer (), I found a unique way to implement his concept of webapp-build-specific URLs on ASP.net MVC:

1) I incorporated the following code snippet into the main class of the web application (previously named MvcApplication) in Global.asax.cs:

#region Versioning

public static string Version => typeof(MvcApplication).Assembly.GetName().Version.ToString(); //note: syntax requires C# version >=6

public static DateTime LastUpdated => File.GetLastWriteTime(typeof(MvcApplication).Assembly.Location);

#endregion

The use of the someProperty => someReadOnlyExpression syntax is a concise way of defining properties introduced in C# 6.

2) In the Content/_Layout.cshtml file, instead of displaying the build number and datetime based on the main assembly as before, I opted for a simpler approach:

Version @somewebappname.MvcApplication.Version (@string.Format("{0:yyyy/MM/dd-HH:mm:ss}", somewebappname.MvcApplication.LastUpdated))

3) To ensure version-specific CSS loading, I modified the hardcoded CSS link in _Layout.cshtml to include the version parameter:

<link href='@Url.Content("~/Content/Site.css?version=" + somewebappname.MvcApplication.Version)' rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> 

This adjustment guarantees that the CSS URL is tied to a specific version, thus preventing unnecessary reloads with each page visit.

In order to automate the incrementing of the build number, I made changes in Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs following guidelines outlined in How to have an auto incrementing version number (Visual Studio)?:

// Version information for an assembly consists of the following four values:
//
//      Major Version
//      Minor Version 
//      Build Number
//      Revision
//
// You can specify all the values or you can default the Revision and Build Numbers 
// by using the '*' as shown below:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]
//[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("1.0.*")] //don't use both AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion with auto-increment

To achieve this, you can utilize a .htaccess file. Simply copy and paste the following code into a file named .htaccess located at the root of your website:

<filesMatch "\.(html|htm|js|css)$">
FileETag None
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
Header unset ETag
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=0, no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"
Header set Pragma "no-cache"
Header set Expires "Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT"
</ifModule>
</filesMatch>

To avoid using the <link> tag in HTML, you can utilize PHP code instead. Simply include the following PHP code within the <link> tag to ensure that your stylesheet is never cached:

<?php 
echo "<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='style.css?'".mt_rand().">";
?>

One way to ensure that your stylesheet is always reloaded by the browser is to include a random version id in the link. Here's an example of how you can do this:

<link   href=<%="'mystyle.css?version="+ DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmss") +"'"%>   rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

In this code snippet, 'myStyle.css' refers to your stylesheet file, and the function DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmss") is used to generate a unique version id each time the page loads. By including this random version id, the browser will be forced to reload your css file.

To initiate a refresh in Google Chrome, just press CTRL + F5 to ensure the CSS updates reflect how they appear on your local machine or server. Another option is utilizing a .htaccess file, although this solution is more permanent for what may be a temporary issue. Keeping CSS caching enabled can improve page loading speed, so I advise against completely disabling it.