How to Remove Dates from Your WordPress URLs

Are you one of those WordPress users who prefer to have dates in their URLs, but now find that this permalink structure no longer works for you? Whatever the reason – whether you don’t want your articles to look old or you just want to make them more search engine and user friendly, There is an easy way to remove the date from all your URLs in WordPress.. Whether it’s a page, a post, or a custom post type, you’ll be able to quickly change each of your URLs to any other format you prefer.

Stay tuned as we show you how to easily remove dates from URLs on your WordPress site. Right after, we will also show you how to redirect all your URLs with the help of a plugin.

Here are the things we will cover:

How Dates Appear in URLs on Your WordPress Site

When it comes to the default WordPress URL structure, it is actually a structure that cannot be easily deciphered by humans. To be more specific, the URL ID itself doesn’t look particularly catchy.

E.g:

https://yoursite.com/?p=123

However, you can easily change this default permalink structure to something that is generally considered more readable and SEO friendly. Settings >> Permalinks.

Thus, the permalink structure, in which there will be a date, can be easily added using one of the options in these settings – “month and name” or “day and name”.

Although these date URLs look more readable than default URLs, dates are likely to cause your posts to appear outdated – especially if they have been created for a long time. This can damage your overall website or blog reputation as it can make your content look outdated and no longer relevant – even if the situation is the opposite.

Below is an example of what your URLs might look like if you use either of the two structures:

Day and name: https://your-site.com/2021/05/25/your-post/

Month and name: https://yoursite.com/2021/05/your-post/

For this reason, we recommend using the Post name URL structure instead. This type of structure will not only remove dates from your URLs but also use keywords found in your title, one of the best user and SEO friendly permalink structures you can use for your WordPress site or blog.

Here is an example URL:

https://yoursite.com/post-post/

Removing Date from WordPress URLs Using Permalink Settings

Before you begin the process of removing the date from your WordPress URLs, there are a few things to consider.

If you haven’t started your WordPress blog yet, you can still remove dates from your URLs. However, if you have been using your site for a while, you should be careful when changing your URLs, as they can cause 404 errors (for both users and search engines) to appear. This can affect your rankings and cause some users to not want to visit your site again. In this case, you will need to create redirects (more on this later).

Finally, we recommend backing up your WordPress site to restore it to previous settings if there are any errors.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move on to removing dates from your URLs.

To start Settings >> Permalinks. choose Name permalink option and shoot Save Changes button (located at the bottom).

That’s it – all the dates in your permalinks will be removed and the structure using the page/post name will be changed.

Setting Up Redirects Using the Help of a Plugin

While you’ve now successfully removed dates from your URLs and made it more user-friendly as a whole, the process doesn’t end there yet. Before you can show users the URLs you just set up without the 404 error, you must first properly redirect them to those URLs. By doing this, you also notify the search engines that you have migrated your old URLs to the new ones.

To do this, you must install and activate the add-on. redirection. This allows you to easily manage all your redirects, fix 404 errors, etc. It is one of the best redirect manager plugins that allows

Once activated, head Tools >> Routing Begin your installation by pressing the and button. start installation button.

Here you will be able to set up a few options such as enabling the ability to monitor all permalink changes on WordPress posts and pages and to keep logging of your redirects and 404 errors. Or you can uncheck one or both of these options.

shoot me continue installation Press the button.

Once the plugin is complete by running a few tests, you will be able to click on it. Complete setup.

From then on, you will be able to access the plugin’s settings and add your referrals using the following. add new button (included in Redirects tab).

Once there, you will be able to add Source (for your old URL structure) and Destination URLs (the location of your new URL).

If your URL structure is set to “Day and name”, you must enter these values:

Source: /(\d*)/(\d*)/(\d*)/([A-Za-z0-9-*])
Target: /$4

If your URL structure is set to “Month and name” you should add the following:

Source: /(\d*)/(\d*)/([A-Za-z0-9-*])
Target: /$3

Finally, be sure to tick it. regular expression option (allows you to update your referrals in bulk) and Add Routing button.

Solution

If you are using dates in your WordPress URLs but find that this permalink structure is no longer cutting it for you, you can easily remove them using the permalink settings in your WordPress admin area. By following our simple guide, you will be able to switch to a more SEO friendly URL structure in no time. Also, you can always install one of the available redirect plugins to prevent your visitors from encountering any 404 errors after changing your URL structure. Personally, we recommend a Redirect plugin for this task.