SharePoint Public Website

If you are or were thinking of using the Office 365 SharePoint Public Website realize that it will soon be disappearing. It is a pity since it gave you a quick website that you could add content to that your clients could visit. It was probably not often used since it did not utilize the domain name of your choice right out of the box. Of course this can be done but it wasn’t done without getting into the system and your domain hosting service to make the changes.

But of course this is all mute now since Microsoft is cancelling this service. The SharePoint Online Public Websites feature is primarily used by a small percentage of our Office 365 customers for their own external-facing websites. Office 365 customers who currently use the SharePoint Online Public Website feature will continue to have access to the feature for a minimum of two years after the changeover date of March 9, 2015.

As of February 2017, customers have had the ability in the SharePoint Admin Center to postpone the removal of their SharePoint Online public website, which would allow them to continue to use the site through March 31, 2018. Customers will continue to have the option of subscribing to third-party solutions for public website functionality. To postpone the site deletion through March 31, 2018, follow these steps:

1. Select Admin from the App Launcher. 
2. Select Admin Centers.
3. Select SharePoint.
4. Select Settings.
5. Scroll to Postpone deletion of SharePoint Online public websites.
6. Select the I’d like to keep my public website until March 31, 2018 option.

Beginning May 1, 2017, anonymous access for existing sites will no longer be available. If customers need more time to move their public website, they have a one-time postponement option for up to one year (March 31, 2018). Customers must select the postpone option by May 1, 2017.

On September 1, 2017, when Microsoft deletes the public site collection in SharePoint Online, customers will no longer have access to the content, images, pages, or any other files that reside on their public website. Before September 1, 2017, customers should make a backup copy of all their public website content, images, pages, and files, so they don’t lose them permanently.

On March 31, 2018, Microsoft will delete all public sites that have been postponed.

Why is Microsoft making this change?

As part of the evolution of the Office 365 service, we periodically evaluate the capabilities of the service to make sure that we’re delivering the utmost value to customers. After careful consideration, we concluded that for public websites, Office 365 customers would be better served by third-party providers whose core competency is public websites. Therefore, we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue the SharePoint Online Public Website feature so that we can focus our efforts and investments on delivering capabilities in Office 365 that will bring more value to our customers.