What's the procedure for removing dates from my Blog URL's?

• Quick question about adjusting a WordPress site's permalinks to remove the date. I've read some articles on SEN and other sites but want to make sure I'm not missing any important SEO steps. So far I've got:
  1. Backup Site
  2. Download Sitemap (for testing)
  3. Check a few existing URLs for chained redirects
  4. Download current .htaccess and add the rule from https://yoast.com/research/permalink-helper.php
  5. Adjust the Permalink Setting in WordPress to the post-name one
  6. Download the new sitemap, compare to old and confirm changes are correct
  7. Use old sitemap to test old URLs and confirm you get a 404
  8. Upload New .htaccess with redirect rule
  9. Use old sitemap to test old URLs and confirm correct redirection occurs
  10. Test new URLs using new sitemap and navigating around site works as expected
  11. Check some old URLs and new URLs with redirect checker to verify chained redirects are kept to a minimum

  Also, what about Google Search Console? ...should either/both of the old and new sitemaps be manually submitted to kickstart updating the index? Or is that unnecessary? Anything else I'm missing?

  Answer:

  We would only add always backup your old .htaccess file before making changes just for good measure. It's always good to have a working htaccess file backup. Otherwise, it all looks good!

  Also, if you have a tool like Screaming Frog's spider, it would be a very good idea to scan the site looking to find hard coded links to any of the old URLs. Fix them if any are found. You'd be looking for 301 redirects the spider finds and get those updated to the new URL format.

  And, yes, you could upload the old sitemap. Call it something like oldsitemap.xml and submit to Google Search Console. That could help push things along but it's probably not necessary. The chances are good that Google will detect there's been a massive change pro...