Extend The SharePoint Online Public Site Life

I hope some people are already aware of Microsoft's new Office 365 subscription plans, which are no longer included in SharePoint Online public Website feature. Starting May 12017, existing public Website is no longer available for public access and later in 2017, Microsoft is going to delete the public Websites.

In this article, we are going to extend our public Web site life till March 31st 2018 and see an alternative third party solution for public Website.

Steps to follow

Step 1

Sign in to your Office 365 tenant with a set of credentials, which have the necessary rights to make changes to SharePoint Online settings. Go ahead – click the link, which I just supplied.

Step 2

Click waffle menu in the suite links bar near the top of the page. The waffle menu is opened by clicking those nine dots (arranged like a Rubik’s Cube). When you click the waffle menu button, you’ll get a menu with a bunch of tiles, which looks something like the image shown above. You’re interested in Admin button right now.

Step 3

Click Admin button and you will be taken to your Admin Center page. Click Admin Center from the bottom of left panel and go to Sharepoint Admin Center page.

Step 4

Locate the settings option in the left-hand column and click it. Once you click it, you’ll see a whole host of settings, which you can review and change. It is in this list that you’ll find the Postpone deletion of SharePoint Online public Websites option buttons, as shown below.


Step 5

Click the I’d like to keep my public Website until March 31, 2018 option button to pull your SPO public site off of death row.

Step 6

Scroll the bottom of the page and click OK button. This will save your changes.

Note
  • May 1, 2017, they are going to remove the anonymous access for all public sites.
  • Sep 1, 2017, Microsoft will be deleting SPO public sites, so if you haven’t saved your SPO public site content 9/1, you are going to lose it.