4 Easy Ways to Remove Post Dates in Google Search Results – There are some webmasters who choose to omit the post date that appears in Google search results.
Not without reason, of course, the decision so that the Remove post date does not appear in search results has been carefully thought out.
techjustify himself decided to do this practice towards the middle of 2022. Do you feel the impact? Feels great!
The most notable is an increase in the CTR side. According to techjustify, this has something to do with the psychological side of Google users.
For example, there is one post in a search engine with the date of posting a year ago. The content may still be very relevant for us to read again at this time.
But for some readers, viewing old dates is like viewing outdated content. They also tend to click on content with the most recent date or with no date only.
Old-date content has already been lost because it is perceived as outdated content.
Whereas the most recent date content and no date will tend to get more clicks. The effect can depend on the selection of the article title and SEO meta,
4 Easy Ways to Remove Post Dates in Google Search Results
- 1 Advantages of Eliminating Post Dates on Blogs / Websites
- 2 4 Easy Ways to Remove Post Dates on a WordPress Website
- 2.1 1. Deleting Post Date with WordPress Settings
- 2.2 2. Using Custom CSS
- 2.3 3. Using the Theme Editor
- 2.4 4. Hiding WordPress Post Date with Plugins
- 3 Conclusion
Table of Contents
Advantages of Eliminating Post Dates on Blogs / Websites
In simple terms, removing the date of posting in articles will build the perception that content is not outdated and always relevant. It doesn’t matter that the content was written yesterday or even three years ago.
Of course, this is not the only factor to directly increase organic visitors to the website. There are many other factors.
However, because of this ‘always relevant’ perception, content that appears in search results is more likely to get more clicks than content that seems dated.
If you are interested in implementing this trick, don’t forget to do a before and after implementation review in your Google Analytics statistics.
4 Easy Ways to Remove Post Dates on a WordPress Website
There are several ways that we can use to Remove the Post Date on the website so that it does not appear in search results. Here are some ways that you can use for a WordPress website:
- Using WordPress Settings
- Custom CSS
- Using the Theme Editor
- Plugin WordPress
You can use one of these methods so that website post dates don’t appear. Let’s try one by one!
1. Removing Post Date with WordPress Settings
Login to your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Settings > General.
In the Date Format settings section, select Custom Field and delete F j, Y like the following screenshot. After that select Save Changes.
After making this setting, the date of the WordPress post will not be hidden.
2. Using Custom CSS
The next way that we can use to remove data from WordPress posts is to use custom CSS code. Here are the steps:
Go to Dashboard > Display > Customize.
Scroll down, select Additional CSS, and paste the following code:
.entry-meta .entry-date.published
{ display: none; }
If the code above doesn’t work, use the following alternative code:
.entry-meta
{ display: none; }
Is the date still visible?
If the date is still visible, it’s possible that your WordPress theme uses a different CSS class for the date format.
To see the CSS Class, right-click on the date section and select “Inspect”, as shown in the following screenshot:
Copy the class name and set it to display “none” as follows:
.CLASS-NAME {
display: none;
}Previously, don’t forget to replace the class name (Class-Name) with the class name on the website theme posting date.
After that, paste it into the Additional CSS section. In this example, for example, we will replace the class name with .post-date.meta-wrapper according to the class name in the theme. After that, select Publish.
3. Using the Theme Editor
Using the theme editor or theme editor can also remove the data from posts in WordPress. You can enter these settings in the Dashboard > Appearance > Theme Editor.
Note: It is recommended to back up files before editing. Or use Child Theme to edit the theme.
- It should also be noted that each WordPress theme may have different settings for placing the code containing the date of this post.
- In this tutorial, the date code is located in the template-part > content-single.php folder.
- In this section, find the line of code that contains the date code section. Once you find it, delete that part of the code.
- Save changes by clicking ‘Update File’.
4. Hiding WordPress Post Date with a Plugin
Some webmasters are not comfortable enough to edit code because they may not be experts in coding. For WordPress websites, of course, that’s not the end.
To remove the post date, the WordPress plugin that we can use is WP Date Remover. Here are the steps:
- Go to Admin Dashboard > Plugins > Add New.
- In the search box, type WP Meta and Date Remover, then Install and Activate.
- Once active, go to Dashboard > Settings > WP Date Remover.
- Here you can set which categories you want to remove the posting date for.
- When all is done, click Save.
Alternatively, you can also use a similar plugin, namely WP Meta & Date Remover.
Conclusion
Not without reason when a webmaster chooses to hide or remove the post date so that it does not appear in search results. One of the most popular reasons is the issue of time relevance.
Old posts whose dates are visible in the SERPs can encourage the perception of outdated content in the eyes of Google users.
With this perception, there is a high possibility that they are reluctant to click on the content. As a result, organic traffic will decrease due to low CTR.
For that, the option to Remove Post Date is an option that attracts the attention of webmasters. The good news is that deleting the date of this post is relatively easy to do.
You only need to change the date settings, do code and CSS editing, or even with the help of a WordPress plugin.
After doing one of the four methods above, the date on the search page usually doesn’t disappear immediately.
You need to be patient because it will take time for Google to re-crawl your website or to speed things up, you can resubmit your website to Google Search Console.
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