How to Remove Date and Time From WordPress Comments

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In this post, you will learn why time/date comment links are bad for SEO and how to remove them from your WordPress blog, the easy-peasy method.

Let’s go!

Table of Contents hide
1) 3 reasons why removing comment links is good for your blog
1.1) #1- Fresher look
1.2) #2- Google confusion
1.3) #3- These links steal PR
2) Here’s how to remove comment date links from your WordPress blog(tutorial)
3) Conclusion

3 reasons why removing comment links is good for your blog

#1- Fresher look

People are often repelled by older dates of comments. When they see it they automatically assume your post is stale and out of date, and no amount of ‘last updated” notice at the start of the post will help with that.

So oftentimes it’s best to remove those dates so people don’t make a mistake of leaving a perfectly up to date post that could’ve helped them.

#2- Google confusion

I admit this rarely happens as Google is getting smarter and all…  But it can happen and you really don’t want to risk it. When there are multiple dates on the page Google has to choose one to consider for its freshness algorithm, and it can happen that Google bot gets confused and picks the wrong one.

So instead of Google selecting a date right under your headline, they chose a comment date from a few years ago.

And that is terrible for SEO because some queries are freshness-dependent. That means that all other SEO you do will fall flat on its face if Google picks the wrong date and it’ll be very hard for you to figure out what’s wrong.

So it’s best to remove it.

#3- These links steal PR

Yes! It’s true. Though technically links that point to the page that hosts them just funnel authority back in, you have to remember that Google removes a portion of Page Rank on each click. How much? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. You need PR to rank in Google and any amount lost is amount wasted.

This means that more comments you have (and having a community is good, don’t get me wrong) more PR leak from that page, making it less authoritative.

Here’s how to remove comment date links from your WordPress blog(tutorial)

The process is very simple. You need to paste the following code into your theme’s functions.php file.

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 // Remove comment date

function wpb_remove_comment_date($date, $d, $comment) {

if ( !is_admin() ) {

return;

} else {

return $date;

}

}

add_filter( ‘get_comment_date’, ‘wpb_remove_comment_date’, 10, 3);

 

// Remove comment time

function wpb_remove_comment_time($date, $d, $comment) {

if ( !is_admin() ) {

return;

} else {

return $date;

}

}

add_filter( ‘get_comment_time’, ‘wpb_remove_comment_time’, 10, 3);

Here are the steps:

In your WordPress dashboard go Appearance/Editor. Once you’re there, find Functions.php, click on it and scroll to the bottom. Then just paste code from above and save the page.

Note: It might be a good idea to backup your site first, just in case.

Conclusion

Removing comment links won’t save your abysmal SEO. But t will make your good SEO great because ranking today in Google is all about that incremental growth, pulling every lever you possibly can. And now I just handed you over one more easy lever to pull.

No need to thank me:)


by Nikola Roza
Nikola Roza likes to blog about SEO and Affiliate marketing. That's the second thing he likes best. The first? Oh, it's simple really. He likes to use SEO to win at the affiliate marketing game. Oh, how ingenious! How fun! If you want to have fun too- visit his blog, You'll thank me later for doing so:)  

7 thoughts on “How to Remove Date and Time From WordPress Comments”

  1. Hi Nikola,
    Great to see you here! Thank so much for including me in the post! I shared on my Facebook page. Off to tweet. Hi Vishwajeet! Thanks for hosting Nikola. He’s a great blogger, has a vast knowledge of SEO and is an all-around great guy. Happy holidays to both of you.
    Janice

    Reply

    • Hello Janice,

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Yes, Indeed Nikola is one of the best and versatile blogger. He has great knowledge in SEO. Glad you like the post. Thanks for stopping by 🙂

      Regards,
      Vishwajeet Kumar

      Reply

    • Thank you Janice! Both you and Vishwajeet are rocking people too:) I wish you happy holidays and all the best in the year ahead. Cheers!

      Reply

  2. Good to see you here and thanks for the shout out bro.
    My theme already allows to remove dates from comment and adjust the date format (or completely remove) from posts as well.

    The problem with modifying the function file is that when there is a theme update, you loose the updates. So I use a child theme for all my changes.

    Thanks for this post man. Hope you both are having a great time

    Reply

  3. Thanks for the tip Enstine. You see, I didn’t know that so I learned something new today. Thanks man!
    P.S.
    Premium themes will have the option to remove comment date links, while free often don’t. I remember I used this trick with Iconic One theme, which is a good, free theme.

    Reply

  4. Nikola that is so interesting on page rank dude. I never thought of it that way. Fascinating. I closed comments out all together because the return was tiny compared to the endless spam, load on my servers from these spammers, and, so few folks published genuine comments. Almost zero return on a big time and energy and traffic-on-server investment. Not worth it, for me.

    Ryan

    Reply

  5. Hey Ryan,
    glad to hear your insights. Yeah, blog comment are a blessing but can become a curse over time. If they take way too much time and bring in reduced value from an SEO and community point of view, then you should disable them.

    Reply

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