Changing the host header for an already existing Microsoft SharePoint site/application
So let's say you have http://originalurl and you want to change it to http://newurl. Don't do it through IIS!!! Pretty much everything you will ever need to manage a Sharepoint farm will always be found in CA.
Here's how you accomplish this simple task:
- Login to CA
- Click the Operations tab
- Click on "Alternate Access Mappings" under Global Configuration
4. In the top right, the default view is "Show All". Just choose the web application you want to change.
5. Click Edit Public URLs and change the URL to whatever you want it to. Done! Test it out and verify it works.

Jason Samuel
Product leader, advisor, and international speaker with 27+ years in enterprise end-user computing, security, and cloud. Has deployed infrastructure at Fortune 500 scale across 34 countries. 1 of 3 people globally to hold Citrix CTP + VMware vExpert + VMware EUC Champion concurrently. 200+ articles, 1,000+ reader discussions.