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

[HashtagJeff]

I know most people who remove dates from their URL structure usually do so and then setup a 301 redirect. I believe that's the right way to go about this typically. My biggest fear with doing a global 301 redirect implementation like that across an entire site is that I've seen cases where this has sort of shocked Google and the site took a hit in organic traffic pretty bad.

Heres what I'm thinking a safer approach would be and I'd like to hear others thoughts. What if...

1. Changed permalink structure moving forward to remove the date in future posts.
2. All current URLs stay as is with their dates
3. Moving forward we would go back and optimize past posts in waves (including proper 301 redirects and better URL structure). This way we avoid potentially shocking Google with a global change across all URLs.

Do you know of a way this is possible with a large Wordpress website? Do you see any conplications that could come about in this process? I'd like to hear any other thoughts about this please.

Thanks!

[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

[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 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

[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

[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!

[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

[LoganRay]

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

[HashtagJeff]

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

[LoganRay]

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

[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]

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]

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]

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]

Logan,

By not being able to remove the dates we're not able to go back to a 5-year old post, make updates, and then republish the content. This is a "mom blog" and the topics can be recycled, but if we create a new post that we also covered 5 years ago we would be competing with ourself instead of using something that already has some authority and rank to it.

That's why we were thinking to somehow make it possible (in WordPress) to keep all current URLs as is, change the permalink structure moving forward so that future posts don't have date, and then be able to update posts as we go and 301 them manually over time. Does that make sense?

I agree with your last 2 statements, it is a HUGE risk to 301 this entire site to do away with those dates. Even though redirects supposedly pass all link juice we all know that a big change like that across an entire site could have ill-effect with search engines.

I'd like to know if anyone has gone about the URL structure change like I'm outlining here. Am I crazy to think that is a logical way to go about it? I haven't been able to find anywhere that someone has done this though.

[LoganRay]

Jeff,

Based on the traffic you say this blog gets, I'm assuming its rather large and has hundreds, if not thousands of posts. Which leads me to one simple question:

Why? This seems like a HUGE amount of risk and a pretty decent amount of work to go into something that's really not going to provide any benefit.

*edit: It should also be noted that just because Google has recently stated that redirects now pass all link juice doesn't mean you should go needlessly add a massive amount of redirects. There are other implications that redirects have, like load time for example. If you have 1,000 redirects, every single one of those is going to be checked before any page on your site loads, which takes a lot of time.

[HashtagJeff]

Thanks for your response. I actually agree with most, if not all of what you are saying.

The problem is that this is a larger blog with 5-7 million page views on average per month. 1 million+ just from organic. I agree with your statement about postponing and never getting done. With a large blog I still think it would be easier (less stressful, not necessarily easier) to manage it in waves in order to pause or correct when there is a larger than normal dip that maybe doesn't come back up. With a business it makes sense, but with these bloggers sites it seems like too big of a risk when it's what brings in almost all the income. Does that make sense?

That tweet you're referring to, I thought that was mainly in regard to HTTP to HTTPS migrations. I need to look more into that I guess.

Thanks!

[DonnaDuncan]

I'm not a fan of your plan.

There can be many reasons why a site might "take a hit". For example, if page-to-page redirects were not implemented or the sitemap was not updated, updated correctly, or resubmitted to search engines. I wouldn't assume that will happen in your case. In my experience, if the transition is done correctly and there's a hit, it's short-lived.

If you're thinking the redirects will cause you to lose SEO equity, that is no longer the case. Gary Illyes, a Google webmaster trends analyst, tweeted on July 26, 2016 "30x redirects don’t lose PageRank anymore."

One of the biggest risks (in my mind) of staging the migration the way you suggest is that the "waves" never happen. I see that a lot - a situation where an organization agrees to postpone work to a future date that never arrives. New and competing priorities take precedence resulting in an endless postponement. If you have the management commitment, funding and resources to do the work now, I say bite the bullet and go for it. Make a plan. Stick to it. Check and double check your work.