Remove WWW prefix from SharePoint URLs

It's not every day you are tasked with doing something, with Microsoft in the room, and the Microsoft rep goes "Wow, we should totally put that on TechNet."

This is one of those things.

If you want to remove the www prefix from a url for all SharePoint sites, here's how:

1.  Download and install the URL Rewrite Module on all web front ends.  Get it here:  http://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite

2.  Configure Alternate Access Mappings in SharePoint to allow the www url.  We added an Internal URL for our WWW entry, and mapped it to the public url.  Our AAM settings looked like this when we were done:



3.  Add a binding in IIS for the additional WWW url.  Our bindings looked like this:



4.  Configure the URL Rewrite Module for the new address.  Do that by:
- Adding a Blank Rule
- Enter the pattern http://www.somesite.com/*
- Choose Rewrite for the Action Type
- Enter the pattern http://somesite.com/*
- Save it.

Why this works:

SharePoint needs an Alternate Access Mapping for the www url.  Once that's in place, IIS needs a binding to recognize the request from SharePoint.  Once THAT is entered, the rewrite module will see the www request come in, pick it up, and reroute it. 

The users will see the site automatically replace the URL to http://somesite.com.