Does It Make Sense to Remove Dates From Your Blog Posts?

I recently decided to remove dates from my blog posts. Why?

Well, for many reasons.

I first looked at it from my own perspective. When I go to a website and realize the post I’m reading is from 5 years ago, the perceived value suddenly starts to plummet. I’m pretty sure this is the wrong attitude to have and I shouldn’t judge content solely based on its publication date, but to be honest, I do.

That got me thinking that perhaps my readers would have the same feeling when stumbling across my blog post.

But is that really enough to justify pulling the date off your posts?

I decided to think deeper.

My new thinking was that by removing the date, people would look at my content as evergreen with no true “expiration date”. The content of the particular post was so good that it didn’t need a date assigned to it. Sweet!

At least that was what I was thinking. And, it pretty much sealed the positive side of the argument.

I figured this was especially true given the nature of my content. I typically write informational pieces that help instruct bloggers how to do certain things or approach particular problems. Given this content is typically evergreen by nature, it made a lot of sense.

If your blog deals with current events or topical content that is based on more real-time information, keeping the dates on your posts is probably the best move for you.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

With any decision you make, especially when it concerns your online business or blog, you should always look at the negatives as well.

What could possibly go wrong by implementing this strategy?

Will society completely fall apart and the onset of a full-scale zombie apocalypse be upon us? No.

But, a better question to consider, will it actually work in the exact opposite manner in which I want? Meaning, will people see there is no date associated with my content and immediately delegitimize its value?

What’s Your Take?

I weighed the positives and the negatives and decided to give it a go.

After all, I’m betting most people won’t even notice that it’s gone, plus it’s one less thing to clutter up my clean design.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Are you a fan of removing dates on blog posts or not? Fire off in the comment section below!

Ready To Make the Move? You Rebel!

If you are a “rebel” like me and want to kick your blog post dates to the curb, here’s how you do it.

In WordPress, go to Appearance and then select Edit CSS. Enter the following code and click Save.

You’re done! Easy, right?

Now, if you want to expand trimming of the fat, you could also remove all other metadata in the entry section of your blog post, more specifically the author name.

For me, this made sense at the time as I’m the only author of my blog. Even if I start to accept guest posts for the website, I can still control the entry of their content without using the author field. If there comes a time where I need to add additional direct contributors to the site, I can simply remove the code.

Here’s the code you can add to the CSS if you want to also strip off all the extra metadata too.

Again, super easy and if there ever comes a time when I want to add additional direct contributors to the site, I can just remove the code!

Play around with it and see if you like it. That’s the beauty of owning our own corner of the web!