Hey guys, do you want to know how to remove date from WordPress URLs very easily in 2021? Then you should read this blog post completely. After reading this article you will be able to remove date from WordPress URLs very easily.
What are Permalinks in WordPress?
According to Wikipedia, A permalink or permanent link is a URL that is intended to remain unchanged for many years into the future, yielding a hyperlink that is less susceptible to link rot. Permalinks are often rendered simply, that is, as clean URLs, to be easier to type and remember. Most modern blogging and content-syndication software systems support such links. Sometimes URL shortening is used to create them.
Permalink may contain an alphabet, number and some special characters. Particularly Permalink on your WordPress blog identifies a piece of content on your WordPress website, if another blogger wants to point a link to your content they point to your Permalink (URL).
When you share your content on social media actually you share your Permalink. When search engines like Google index your content it also index your permalinks. I hope you understand what is a Permalink.
Also Read: How To Remove date from Blogger post URLs
Why date appears in WordPress URL?
By default, WordPress uses date, month and year on URLs like Blogger URL. However WordPress has given you many different types of URL structures, you can choose. Initially, WordPress was started to share daily life experiences so date is automatically added on its URL and it will help readers to know when the post was actually published. But now we are using WordPress for many other purposes sometimes it looks awkward to keep date on WordPress URLs. Don’t worry you can remove date from WordPress URL very easily by following the steps given below.
From your WordPress blog settings section, you can choose the default URL structure of your WordPress blog post URL, you may add date, month, year or post name.
Have you noticed that date, year and month are added to the news website’s URL? Having date on your blog URL is not a problem has no negative effect on SEO according to Google. But when you are publishing some evergreen content and date is added on its URL the reader may consider it as old content and may leave your page. So in this tutorial, I will guide you step by step to remove date from WordPress URL.
What Google says on the ranking with date on URL, Once a Twitter user asked John Muller about evergreen content having a date on its URL. Then Google’s John Muller replied “If it’s evergreen, then by definition you don’t need to change it. No need to do anything special. Keep your dates, make it great.” I have also embedded his tweet below you can check.
Hey, @JohnMu Any recommendations for “EVERGREEN” content, which literally need no changes for several years! How to notify Google that content still has the same value as previous! Am I need to delete the date? Or something else.
— Saswata B. (@heySaswata) January 5, 2020
Consider Before Removing date from WordPress URLs
If you are new to WordPress and just started your WordPress blog, have not published much more content on your website then it is safe and normal to remove date from WordPress URL. But if you have an well established WordPress blog and Google has indexed much content of your website then you should consider some points before you remove date from WordPress URL and change the permalink.
Definitely, you can remove date from a well-established WordPress website but you have to fix some 404 errors after removing date from WordPress website URLs.
If you remove date from WordPress URLs which site is already established and indexed by Search engines like Google, then you will get huge 404 errors which may result in losing website traffic. However, there is a way you can fix 404 errors of WordPress websites very easily. If you don’t fix 404 errors on your website after removing date from URLs then you will lose organic traffic, bad user experience and search engine may penalize your website.
As earlier I have already informed you that if you remove date from WordPress URLs has no SEO benefits on Seach Engine perspective, although it has no negative effects. But yes it will shorten your URL and the reader can’t know when the post was actually published. (You can show or hide your post published date from the customization tab).
So think twice before you remove date from WordPress website and fix 404 errors as fast as possible after you remove date from WordPress.
Easy Steps to remove date from WordPress URL
Below I have added a step by step guide to remove date from WordPress URLs, Follow these steps carefully and remove date from WordPress URL very easily. I have also added screenshots you can check.
STEP 1: Log in to your WordPress dashboard and click on settings
STEP 2: Click on Permalinks (as seen on screenshot)
STEP 3: Choose permalink structure without date and click on save (as shown in the screenshot)
As you can see there are number of structures available you can choose and continue.
- Plain
https://roseblogging.com/?p=123 - Day and name
https://www.roseblogging.com/2022/01/22/sample-post/ - Month and name
https://www.roseblogging.com/2022/01/sample-post/ - Numeric
https://www.roseblogging.com/archives/123 - Post name
https://www.roseblogging.com/sample-post/ - Custom Structure
Choose your own URL structure using available tags.
Yahoo! you have successfully removed date from WordPress URL.
Redirection Settings after removing date from WordPress URLs
After you remove date from WordPress URL, it will change the permalink structure of the website. And if someone visits an old URL (with date) will get 404 errors (page not found). When Google crawl your website it will get huge 404 errors which will result in you to lose traffic from Search engines. So you have to fix 404 errors on your website after removing from URLs.
You can fix WordPress 404 errors by redirecting old URLs to new URLs, for this you can use a redirection plugin from WordPress library. Now many SEO plugins like Rankmath has an inbuilt redirection feature you can use. You have to monitor 404 errors on your WordPress blog and redirect them to new URLs. Which will help you to keep organic traffic on your website and good user experience.
404 Errors after changing WordPress permalink
When you remove date from WordPress URLs or change permalink structure in WordPress website and someone tries to visit old URLs or even Google come to crawl your website they will get 404 errors. 404 error means page not found on that location. If your website has huge 404 errors and you don’t fix it may affect your SEO and result in loss of organic web traffic from search engines. To fix 404 errors in WordPress you have to just find error URLs and redirect them to a new URL.
Redirection settings in Rankmath SEO plugin
Below I have shown you screenshots how to use redirection feature in Rankmath SEO plugin. Just follow these simple steps to fix 404 errors on your website using Rankmath SEO plugin.
STEP 1: First monitor 404 errors on your website from 404 monitor tab under Rankmath
STEP 2: Click on Redirections under Rankmath (as shown on screenshot)
STEP 3: You will see a form with Source and Target fields. ‘Source’ is the field where you’ll describe your old URL structure and ‘Target’ is the location of the new URL. Click on Add new then add both source URL(old) and destination (new) and click on add redirection button.
STEP 4: You have to add all error urls one by one and redirect new url to fix 404 error on your website.
Review Your Changes
Before leaving once review your changes, check if everything is okay or not. Old URLs are redirecting to new URLs or not, check and fix if there are some errors. Now you have successfully removed date from WordPress URL.
Is there any SEO benefits of removing date from URL
According to Google having date on URL is not an ranking factor and it doesn’t affect your website SEO, But users may judge the content as old content as they saw dates on an URL.
What are the disadvantages of Removing date from WordPress URLs
If you want to remove date from WordPress URL you have to change your permalink structure. If you change permalink structure of a live site then you will get 404 errors, however you can fix these errors by redirecting to new URL.
Is it possible to remove date from WordPress URL
Yes it is possible, you can remove date from WordPress URLs very easily by changing your permalinks structure from Setting tab.
How can I change permalink in WordPress
To change permalink structure in WordPress, First login to your WordPress dashboard as administrator then click on setting and then permalinks. Here you can choose structure of your WordPress permalink.
Summary
In this blog post I have tried my best to show you how to remove date & change WordPress URL structure. I hope this was helpful for you to know about benefits & cons of removing date from WordPress post URLs. KIndly share this blog post on your social media with others.
Thank you for reading this blog post till end I hope this was helpful for you to understand how to remove date from WordPress URL very easily. To learn more about Blogging, affiliate marketing you can connect with us on Facebook, Telegram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
