Should I Remove the Dates in my Blog URLs? Yes!

• My current blog permalink structure has the date in the URL. I've been told that removing the date is the accepted best practice and what Google prefers. Is there an SEO benefit to doing this, and if I do make the change what are the best practices to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible?

Answer: Removing dates from blogging URLs is the best practice these days for two reasons: utility and the concept of futureproofing.

First, the utility of removing the date means that you've shortened your URL. A shorter URL is easier to share and easier for users to remember. But more importantly, removing the date, especially in the case of evergreen content, promotes a sense of relevancy to both the user and search engines.

Google is all about freshness and embracing the time value of content. These are fancy ways of saying that they want to promote blog content that is easy to update, relevant now and into the future, and doesn't require a URL change by the publisher.

When blog authors put dates in their post URLs they are immediately limiting its future "evergreen" potential. This is where the concept of futureproofing comes into play.

A great example is within the recipe niche. Many users search for and visit a recipe and notice that it was published years ago. Most will then form an unconscious bias regarding the timeliness of that recipe (or any other content for that matter) and question its accuracy.

Further, by having a date in your URL, you will have to republish at a NEW URL every...