How to Remove the Date from WordPress Permalinks: Many WordPress sites historically used the day and name permalink structure (/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/) for posts. While this was popular for professional blogging in the past, modern SEO best practices recommend using simple post name (/%postname%/) or category and post name based URLs. Removing dates from your URLs helps improve readability, click-through rates, and long-term SEO value.
Step 1: Change the Permalink Structure
It’s easy to change your permalink structure in WordPress:
- Login to your WordPress Admin panel.
- Go to Settings > Permalinks.
- Select Custom Structure and enter:
/%postname%/
- Click Save Changes.
Step 2: Redirect Old URLs to Avoid 404s and SEO Loss
Changing permalinks alone does not redirect old URLs. To preserve your inbound links and search engine ranking, add a redirect rule to your .htaccess file.
- Use an FTP client to download your .htaccess file from your WordPress directory.
- If WordPress is installed in the root directory (e.g., http://yoursite.com), add this code just before
# BEGIN WordPress:
RedirectMatch permanent ^/[0-9]{4}/[0-9]{2}/[0-9]{2}/([a-z0-9-/]+) http://yoursite.com/$1
- If WordPress is installed in a subdirectory (e.g., http://yoursite.com/wordpress), add this code before
# BEGIN WordPress:
RedirectMatch permanent /wordpress/[0-9]{4}/[0-9]{2}/[0-9]{2}/([a-z0-9-/]+) http://yoursite.com/wordpress/$1
Important: Replace yoursite.com with your actual domain and wordpress with your subdirectory name if applicable.
Step 3: Test Your Redirects
- Visit an old post URL (with the date) and confirm it redirects to the new URL without the date.
- Use tools like HTTP Status Checker to verify 301 redirects are working.
Pro Tips for WordPress SEO
- Always use 301 redirects when changing permalink structures to preserve link equity.
- Update your sitemap in Google Search Console after changing URLs.
- Check for internal links within your site and update them to avoid unnecessary redirects.
- Consider using a plugin like Redirection if you prefer a GUI to manage URL redirects.
Summary
Removing dates from WordPress post URLs improves SEO, enhances readability, and helps future-proof your content. By changing the permalink structure and adding proper 301 redirects in .htaccess, you can ensure old links continue to work while modernizing your URLs.
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