Looking to remove dates from URL permalink structure. What do you think of this idea?

[LoganRay]

OK, now that I understand the reasoning...

I believe there's a better, less-risky approach. What I would do is write a completely new post based on information from the old post. At the same time you publish the new post, go back to the old version and add these two things: a canonical tag pointing to the new version, and a bit of _very readable _text at the top linking to the new post. Something like "Hey, thanks for your interest in our content. Feel free to read on, but we thought you should know we've updated this post which can be found here: link"

This accomplishes a few important things. It eliminates the need for a risky project that could affect your entire site just for the ability to update posts (which I'm guessing doesn't happen too often, what percent of posts get updated?). The canonical tag removes the dupe content risk so you're not cannibalizing your own content. And leaving the old post there gives people the opportunity to discover old content that, while possibly not relevant anymore, still demonstrates you've been a trustworthy source of information for a long time.

[HashtagJeff]

Although I haven't strongly considered that approach, it did cross my mind to utilize the canonical. Do you know of any way to change WordPress permalink structure going forward but not backwards? Or are you suggesting we keep the dates in the URL going forward? I just think that eventually we'll have to think about updating that URL structure.

[LoganRay]

Yes, I'm saying you should keep URLs as they are. I'm always an advocate for not changing URL structure unless there's a really good, highly beneficial reason for doing so. I don't know of a way to change only new URL structures while keeping old ones the same, but I'm no WP expert.

[HashtagJeff]

Know of any site that has used the canonical to do anything like this? It seems like the safest option, I just haven't seen this to this scale is all.

[LoganRay]

Unfortunately, I don't have any examples for ya. Never come across this particular topic for a client.

[HashtagJeff]

It was worth a shot. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Cheers!

[LoganRay]

No problem, glad to help! Best of luck with whichever route you go with!

[garrettn]

Hi Jeff,

Did you end up making these changes? How is it going? I found your post as I was researching and rethinking how to structure WordPress blog permalinks.

I have a few e-commerce clients with blog posts that are several years old and still popular in organic search. I'd like to turn some of them into evergreen content that is regularly updated, but I feel like we should do something about the permalinks first.

There are some great insights here. Thank you to all who contributed.

Garrett

[HashtagJeff]

Garrett -

I never got a clear answer, but I have since gone forward making changes on 20+ Wordpress blogs without any ill-effect. The changes we made were only to sites that had dates in the permalink structure and 301 redirects were put in place (on the server, not through a plugin). Trying to change the permalink structure going forward but not back was too much of a hassle. It appears Google sees this as a positive change for users because it cleans up the permalink structure and allows site owners to keep their content updated and continue sharing.

Not sure how this will apply in other scenarios such as removing folder structure (categories and tags) from the permalink, but I've had only positive results removing the dates. I work with some very high profile mom and food blogs so I have some pretty solid evidence and data supporting my decisions now.

I hope that helps. Cheers!

[BlueprintMarketing]

I think only do 10% of pages watch them if you like what you see do the next 20%

RedirectMatch301^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/(.*)$ http://yourwebsite.com/$3

[julienraby]

Hey Thomas,

Interesting thought! Could you go in a little more details as to how that regex would work? Would that randomize the redirects to only a portion of the posts?

Thanks!

Julien

[HashtagJeff]

Hey Julien -

I wouldn't go this route. Since asking this question I have had dates removed from 30+ domains, many with 5-10 million+ pageviews per month. We haven't seen this as a risk and are now very in favor of removing dates from URLs on most sites we work with. We work with sites that have very evergreen content, and republishing is a very strong SEO strategy.

The process is very similar to moving your site to HTTPS from HTTP. Since Google has started recommending HTTPS we haven't seen any issue with removing dates as well.

Hope that helps

[julienraby]

Hey Jeff,

thank you for your input. So you just globally changed the permalink structure, put global redirects in place and you didn't see permanent loss in trafic? And you did that on multiple sites?

If so I'll most probably follow your path.

Thanks again,

Julien