Why Removing Dates from URLs Killed Your Traffic
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Taking the date out of your URLs moves every dated page to a new address. /2023/03/best-running-shoes/ and /best-running-shoes/ are different URLs, so the change is a site move with URL changes, and the first explanation to check for a drop afterward is the move itself: Google has to find, recrawl and settle on every new URL. Losing the year from the path is not where the story starts. The parts you control include the friction the move left behind and the date information the page still gives, and the part to keep separate is any page that was weak before the move.
A date change is a site move
Google’s site move guide covers moves where page URLs change. It tells you to expect temporary fluctuation in site ranking during the move, and says that to consider a move complete, Googlebot has to visit every URL on the old and new site at least once.
That sets the frame for a date removal: a dip during recrawling is expected, and there is no published recovery date. What you can shorten is the friction.
Remove the friction the move left
Links to the old dated URLs. Navigation, related-post modules, in-content links and feeds can still point at the dated addresses, so each of those links now goes through a redirect. Google’s guide to consolidating duplicate URLs says to link to the canonical URL within your site, and that linking consistently to the URL you consider canonical helps Google understand your preference. Crawl the site, find internal links whose target redirects, and point them at the new URL.
Sitemaps. List only the new URLs. The same guide describes sitemap inclusion as a weak signal that helps the included URLs become canonical, so a sitemap full of dated URLs argues against your own redirects.
Temporary redirects. Check that each old URL returns one permanent redirect to its new address. Google’s documentation on redirects says that for a temporary redirect, the indexing pipeline doesn’t use the redirect as a signal that the target should be canonical. A 302, whether set by hand or left by a plugin, leaves each dated URL arguing to stay in the index.
What the date in the URL was doing
The year in the path was one place a page’s date appeared. Google’s guidance on publication dates says Google doesn’t depend on a single date factor, and that its systems look at several factors to estimate when a page was published or significantly updated. What it asks for is on the page:
- a user-visible date, featured prominently and labeled with text like “Published” or “Last updated”
datePublishedanddateModifiedin structured data, using a type such asArticleorBlogPosting- dates that are consistent between the visible text and the structured data, accurate, and not in the future
If a template dropped the visible date along with the URL segment, the page lost its stated date, not just a path segment. Put it back. For content where the year matters to readers, such as an annual roundup, the page’s date and its title can carry that information without the URL.
Separate redirect problems from page problems
Once the plumbing is fixed, split the affected URLs into two groups:
- Clean: the old URL returns one permanent redirect, the new URL returns
200, internal links and sitemaps point at the new URL. - Not clean: anything still redirecting twice, returning
302or404, or still linked internally at the old address.
Fix the second group before judging it. Pages in the clean group that keep underperforming after Google has recrawled them suggest a problem with the pages rather than the URLs. Treat them as a content question on its own track. Mixing the two groups can lead teams to rewrite healthy pages while broken redirects stay in place.
Don’t put the dates back
A drop can make reverting look tempting, but restoring the dates is a second site move with its own recrawl and its own fluctuation. Google’s URL structure guidelines ask for readable, descriptive words in URLs, and nothing in them requires a date. Finish the first move properly instead.
Frequently asked questions
Should I have kept the dates in my URLs?
Dateless URLs are a reasonable structure, and they don’t have to change when you update a post. The mistake is treating the removal as a cosmetic edit instead of the site move it is.
How long until traffic comes back?
Google’s site move guide says it can take a few weeks or more for a medium-sized site, and longer for larger ones, and gives no fixed date. Clean single-hop permanent redirects, internal links and sitemaps that point at the new URLs, and a visible date on each page are what you control.
Do I lose the page’s freshness without the year in the URL?
The URL date wasn’t the only date signal. Google looks at several factors for a page’s date and asks for a visible, labeled date and datePublished or dateModified in structured data.