When I change siteurl in wp_options, my local website STILL WORKS. Why?

Question

I'm trying to move a site from Bitnami "localhost" on my computer to a live site online. It's proving very difficult, so I'm trying to understand how this all works.

A very simple question -- the answer to this might offer me some insight:

1. I've opened the "bitnami_wordpress" database on my computer phpMyAdmin.
2. I've gone into "wp_options" and changed the siteurl to something other than what it read originally.

It doesn't matter what I've changed it to -- my website on Bitnami localhost should no longer work, right?

Yet the website still works. Why??

Answer 1

Try changing home url in wp_options

If that still doesn't solve the problem, you can find how to migrate wordpress in http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress

Answer 2

I believe the answer to the original question is that the original URL has been cached in the browser. I just ran into the opposite issue: I was still getting a redirect from http://localhost:81/ to http://localhost/ after changing siteurl in SQL table wp_options. Clearing the cache in my browser fixed the issue.