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How do you remove the date and time from WP posts?

by roweis
14 replies
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Hello!

I have noticed that in the Google SERPs in the description, many blogs have a description which starts with the date of the post and then is followed by the actual meta description. I think this can be a very negative feature because people who do searches and see a date from a few years back will feel that the information on that website is out of date and will not bother to visit the site even if the ranking is high for that search term. I have several blog posts that are high in ranking but show a date from as far back as 2007.


My question is, what is the best way to eliminate both the date and the time in WordPress? Is there an easy way to do it, without editing the code (which I'm very afraid of doing!)? I do feel that it's very negative when the Google results show a description where the first thing you see is a very old date. Dates are really not necessary unless it's a current events site like CNN or CBS or a similar news site. Please advise me on the best way to eliminate the date and time from all my blog posts, as well as from the category and tag pages, and from the home page as well.

Thank you very much for your help,

Robert
#date #posts #remove #time
  • Profile picture of the author xtrapunch
    Easiest way is to use WordPress SEo plugin by Yoast. It has an option to disable date in search engine snippet.
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    • Profile picture of the author roweis
      Hi!

      Thank you for your suggestion, but apparently it did not work for me. I have a blog recently created and I do have WordPress SEO by Yoast and I did check "disable date in snippet preview for posts"; in spite of that, Google indexed one of my pages and the first thing in the meta description is the date! I have found a plugin called "date exclusion seo" do you know it and do you recommend it?
      Thank you again for your help,

      Robert
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  • Profile picture of the author satrap
    I have written a pot that explains in a very simply step by step guide on how to remove dates from wp posts. Its not as had as you may think it is. Here is the link to the post:
    How to remove dates from wp posts
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    • Profile picture of the author wordwizard
      Hi Satrap,

      thanks for your info. I checked it out, and unfortunately, my blog doesn't seem to contain any of those particular codes. Where else could the date info be hiding?

      Thanks so much.

      Elisabeth

      P.S.: I just found a quick and dirty method that works, at least on the current default theme - no plugin or css editing required:

      Just go to settings > general
      Then go to time/date and choose custom
      Then simply delete what's in the box.
      And save the result, of course.

      It does leave a small, slightly awkward remnant of what was there before, but the date is gone.

      it reads "Posted on by YOUR NAME" - I wish I knew how to get rid of the "on" but what the heck.

      If anyone knows a cleaner way, please let us know...
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      • Profile picture of the author aniketsrivastava
        Hi... i am also looking solution for the same....need to remove date from the post....

        tried date exclusion plugin but it didn't work....moreover the default twenty eleven 1.2 theme doesn't seem to contain the code <?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> in single.php or index.php

        can anyone suggest any other way...

        the method by word wizard will remove 15 nov 2011 from "Posted on 15 Nov 2011" but not the phrase "Posted on"

        Regards
        Aniket
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        • Profile picture of the author OBaz
          It depends on the theme used. If its a child theme of some framework it will be more difficult to edit if you are not familiar with a particular framework.

          If its a simple theme you will need to edit your theme pages in the editor in WP.

          Find the words "Posted on" and remove. But before editing anything in WP always copy the text or code, so you can get back to the working state if something goes wrong after editing.
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      • Profile picture of the author source206
        Originally Posted by wordwizard View Post

        Hi Satrap,

        thanks for your info. I checked it out, and unfortunately, my blog doesn't seem to contain any of those particular codes. Where else could the date info be hiding?

        Thanks so much.

        Elisabeth

        P.S.: I just found a quick and dirty method that works, at least on the current default theme - no plugin or css editing required:

        Just go to settings > general
        Then go to time/date and choose custom
        Then simply delete what's in the box.
        And save the result, of course.

        It does leave a small, slightly awkward remnant of what was there before, but the date is gone.

        it reads "Posted on by YOUR NAME" - I wish I knew how to get rid of the "on" but what the heck.

        If anyone knows a cleaner way, please let us know...
        Thank you so much for this - I have been searching on how to remove the date from wordpress for a while, and more important things keep coming up, and its been over a year now!

        At least now some of my blogs may benefit from this.
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        • Profile picture of the author wordwizard
          Originally Posted by source206 View Post

          Thank you so much for this - I have been searching on
          how to remove the date from wordpress for a while, and more important things keep
          coming up, and its been over a year now!

          At least now some of my blogs may benefit from this.
          You're welcome. Glad it was helpful!

          I'm using it all over the place myself.

          One thing to remember though...

          Now that Google gives brownie points for timeliness and recency of the posts, you may
          want to keep the date for blogs you update a LOT. On the other hand, if you don't
          update them frequently, then getting rid of the date is really helpful.

          Good luck!
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          • Profile picture of the author omarusman
            If you're willing to try out the plugin I made:

            WordPress – WP Post Date Remover

            maybe, this may help too.

            or search on Wordpress Plugin Directory for "WP Date Remover".
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            • Profile picture of the author blogfreakz
              Originally Posted by omarusman View Post

              If you're willing to try out the plugin I made:

              WordPress - WP Post Date Remover

              maybe, this may help too.

              or search on Wordpress Plugin Directory for "WP Date Remover".
              This is very helpful, thank you, I tried this plugin, and it's work!
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  • Profile picture of the author pace160
    please use edit post section in right side bar of WP

    Thansk
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  • Profile picture of the author Jim Guererro
    In wordpress there are a ton of plugins for a lot of modifications that people want. As you've seen through the previous posts that has been confirmed. I'm sure that as time goes along that other modifications will be desired and looking for an appropriate plugin is the first course of action before actually modifying code.

    Modifying code within wordpress certainly works but what happens is that whenever wordpress comes out with a major release that the code may change. Ever so slightly the code may change but could be enough to make your blog unreadable because the coding change doesn't complement the newer version. Stay with plugins and you'll never go wrong.
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    • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
      That's just plain wrong as it is...

      The more plugins, the more bloated ==> slower your blog will become.

      Next: not all plugin "authors" are smart coders - many of them leave a lot of open doors for hackers... just because they don't know any better (plain English: they are crappy coders)
      Do you really want such plugin on your site as "first course of action"???

      Next: editing your template files in a theme and/or editing the core WP files is not the same. Whoever doesn't understand the difference, shouldn't give advice publicly about WordPress.

      If you edit out (comment out) the template tag showing the date - that happens in your theme. Not in the core files. No upgrade should affect/overwrite your theme files ever. (Actually, it doesn't...)

      Whenever it is possible: do NOT use a plugin

      Originally Posted by Jim Guererro View Post

      In wordpress there are a ton of plugins for a lot of modifications that people want. As you've seen through the previous posts that has been confirmed. I'm sure that as time goes along that other modifications will be desired and looking for an appropriate plugin is the first course of action before actually modifying code.

      Modifying code within wordpress certainly works but what happens is that whenever wordpress comes out with a major release that the code may change. Ever so slightly the code may change but could be enough to make your blog unreadable because the coding change doesn't complement the newer version. Stay with plugins and you'll never go wrong.
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  • Profile picture of the author subrotoazhar
    find this code:
    <?php the_time(‘F jS, Y’) ?> on your index.php, single.php, archive.php, search.php, and page.php
    after you found it, just remove the code include the phrases before the code...
    for example, if your index.php have "posted on <?php the_time(‘F jS, Y’) ?>"
    just delete this line, save it and you'll see the date on each posts you've publish gone.
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