Let's Talk About That Date in Your Blogger URL
If you have been using Blogger for any length of time, you have probably noticed something a little annoying about your post URLs. They look something like this:
yourblog.com/2024/05/your-post-title.html
That /2024/05/ sitting right in the middle is the publication date, and it bothers a lot of bloggers. It makes the URL look long, it makes your content look old, and compared to a clean WordPress URL like yourblog.com/your-post-title, it just feels a bit clunky.
So naturally, the first thing most people do is search for how to remove it. And when you search, you find dozens of tutorials saying "just add this JavaScript to your theme and you're done." Simple, right?
Well, not exactly. There is more to this story than most of those tutorials tell you, and that is exactly what this post is going to cover. By the time you finish reading, you will know what that date-removal trick actually does, what it does not do, and most importantly, whether it is even worth doing in the first place.
Why Blogger Adds a Date to Your Post URL
This is not a bug or an oversight. Blogger, which is owned and maintained by Google, structures its post URLs around the publication date by default. The format has always been /YYYY/MM/post-title.html, and there is no toggle in the dashboard to change this behaviour.
WordPress gives you full control over your permalink structure from day one. You can set it to plain, date-based, month-based, numeric, post name, or a custom structure. Blogger does not offer that flexibility. Your only option is to either accept the date in the URL or work around it.
That workaround is what most tutorials are teaching, and it is worth understanding what it actually does before you apply it to your blog.
How the Date Removal Method Actually Works
Here is the part most guides skip over entirely, and it is the most important part of this whole conversation.
The popular method for removing the date from a Blogger post URL uses JavaScript. Specifically, it uses a browser API called window.history.replaceState to rewrite the URL that appears in the visitor's address bar after the page loads.
Let that sink in for a moment. The script does not change your actual URL. It does not move your post to a new address. It does not touch Blogger's servers. What it does is wait for the page to finish loading, then quietly swap out what the visitor sees in their browser's address bar.
So your post still lives at yourblog.com/2024/05/your-post-title.html. That is the real address. That is what Blogger serves. That is what gets indexed. The script just makes it look like yourblog.com/your-post-title.html to anyone visiting your site.
It is, at its core, a cosmetic change. A visual trick.
And that distinction matters enormously when we start talking about SEO.
Does Removing the Date from Your Blogger URL Help SEO?
This is the real question, and the honest answer is: no, not in any meaningful way.
Here is why.
When Googlebot crawls your blog, it does not run JavaScript the same way a human visitor's browser does. Even when it does execute JavaScript, the URL it records and indexes is the actual URL your server responds to, not a client-side rewrite that happens after page load.
That means Google sees yourblog.com/2024/05/your-post-title.html. That is the URL it stores in its index. That is the URL that will appear in search results. The clean version created by the script never gets indexed because it never actually exists on a server anywhere.
So if someone tells you that removing the date from your Blogger URL will boost your rankings, that claim does not hold up. You are not changing anything that Google actually processes.
But Does the Date in a URL Hurt Your SEO?
This is the follow-up question worth asking, and the answer is also no.
Google does not penalise URLs for containing dates. Plenty of high-authority websites, including major news outlets and established blogs, use date-based URL structures and rank perfectly well. The Google Search Central documentation on URL structure focuses on making URLs simple, descriptive, and readable, but it does not say anything negative about dates being present.
The idea that dated URLs harm SEO is mostly a myth that has been repeated so many times it started to feel like fact. In reality, what hurts SEO is having URLs that are unclear, too long with unnecessary parameters, or that change frequently without proper redirects.
A date in a URL is not a problem Google needs you to fix.
So Is There Any Reason to Remove the Date at All?
Yes, actually, but the reason is about user experience, not SEO.
There is a genuine argument that dated URLs can make content feel stale to human visitors. If someone sees /2021/03/ in a URL before they even click, they might assume the content is outdated and skip it. For evergreen content, things like tutorials, guides, and how-to posts that remain relevant for years, a clean URL without a date can give a better first impression.
That is a legitimate reason to consider the change. It is about how your content is perceived by real people, not about tricking a search engine.
But even then, it only applies if you are starting fresh. Which brings us to the most important part of this post.
Should You Remove the Date from Your Blogger URL?
This depends entirely on where your blog currently stands, and the answer is different depending on your situation.
If Your Blog Is New
If you have just started your blog and have fewer than ten posts, none of which are indexed in Google yet, then applying this method is relatively low risk. You are not disrupting anything that has already been established. The script will make your URLs look cleaner to visitors, and since nothing is indexed yet, there is no recrawl disruption to worry about.
If you want clean-looking URLs for cosmetic reasons, now is the time to do it, before your content starts gaining traction in search.
If Your Blog Is Established
If your blog has been running for a while, has posts indexed in Google, and is receiving organic traffic, then applying this method is not worth the disruption.
Remember, the actual URLs are not changing. Google has already indexed your posts with the date in the URL. Applying the JavaScript trick does not change what is indexed. So you get no SEO benefit, but you do introduce inconsistency, where your internal links and any backlinks point to the dated URL, but visitors see a different one in the address bar. That inconsistency can cause confusion and in some edge cases may affect how analytics tools and tracking scripts record page visits.
For an established blog, the risk-to-reward ratio just does not make sense.
If You Want Real URL Control
If clean URL structure is genuinely important to you and you are serious about building a professional blog, it is worth thinking longer term. Blogger has limitations that go beyond just the date in the URL. If you are committed to building a serious blogging business, the platform choice matters. That said, Blogger can absolutely be made to work well with the right setup, including connecting a custom domain to your Blogger blog, which is a far more impactful move for your credibility and SEO than removing a date from your URL.
What About the .html Extension?
While we are on the topic of Blogger URL structure, some people also want to remove the .html extension at the end of their post URLs, for the same reasons they want to remove the date.
The same logic applies. The .html extension is baked into how Blogger generates its URLs. Any method to remove it from the visible URL is also a client-side workaround, not a real structural change. Google indexes the URL with .html, and that is what lives in its database.
The extension does not hurt your SEO. It is simply part of how Blogger works.
A Note on Redirects and Broken Links
One thing the JavaScript method does handle reasonably well is redirects. Because the underlying URL never actually changes, anyone who clicks an old link with the date in it will still land on the correct post. The page loads, then the script rewrites the address bar. So from a user experience standpoint, old shared links and bookmarks will still work.
However, if you ever run into issues with your Blogger blog and custom domain setup, those kinds of URL and redirect problems can sometimes compound. If you have ever dealt with a situation where your Blogger custom domain is not working, you already know how frustrating URL and redirect issues can get. Adding a layer of client-side URL rewriting on top of an already complicated setup is something to think carefully about.
The Bigger Picture: What Actually Moves the Needle on Blogger SEO
I want to take a moment here to zoom out, because the date-in-URL conversation is a good example of a trap that many bloggers fall into: spending time on things that feel like SEO improvements but do not actually move the needle.
If you want your Blogger posts to rank better in search, here are the things that actually matter, based on real experience working with Blogger blogs:
Your Content Quality
Google's helpful content guidelines are clear: content that genuinely helps people, written with real expertise and experience, is what gets rewarded. A post with a dated URL that answers a question thoroughly will always outrank a post with a clean URL that says nothing useful.
Your Domain Setup
If you are still on a blogspot.com subdomain, connecting a custom domain is one of the most impactful things you can do. It signals seriousness, improves brand trust, and gives you a consistent identity. This matters far more than any URL cosmetic change. If you are not sure which domain provider to go with, there are some solid domain providers worth considering for Blogger blogs that are affordable and straightforward to connect.
Your Internal Linking
Connecting your posts to each other through relevant internal links helps Google understand the structure and depth of your blog. It also keeps visitors on your site longer, which is a positive signal.
Getting Indexed Properly
Before worrying about URL appearance, make sure your posts are actually being discovered and indexed. If you have had posts that are not showing up in search, that is a more pressing issue. Understanding why Blogger posts get de-indexed and how to fix it is worth your time before you start tweaking URLs.
The Bottom Line
Removing the date from your Blogger post URL using the JavaScript method is a cosmetic change, not an SEO improvement. Google crawls and indexes your real URL, which still contains the date. The clean URL that visitors see in their browser address bar is a visual rewrite that the search engine does not process or reward.
The date in your Blogger URL is not hurting your rankings. It never was. If removing it makes your blog feel more polished to human visitors and you are starting out fresh with a new blog, it is a harmless personal preference. But chasing it as an SEO strategy is time that could be better spent on content, domain setup, and making sure your posts are indexed and discoverable in the first place.
Build something worth reading. The URL is just the address. What matters is what is inside the house.
See you in my next post ☺️
