What is Post Meta Data in WordPress?
Post meta data is information about a post that is not
part of the actual content. This includes information
like post date, author, categories and tags, or custom
taxonomies.
Post meta data shown in a WordPress blog post
Depending on your WordPress theme, this
information can be displayed on different locations.
For example, below post title, after post content, in a
sidebar column, and more.
This information helps your users learn more about
the content they are viewing. If used correctly, post
meta data can increase page views, improve user
experience, and make your site look more
professional.
On the downside, too much meta data can make
your website look messy.
Messy display of post meta data
Depending on your website, you can add or remove
information and add custom css styles to make it
more useful.
Let us take a look at how to display post meta data in
WordPress.
How WordPress Themes Display Post Meta Data?
There are multiple ways to display post meta data.
Some themes have simpler code located below the
post title.
By on in
This code simply displays author s name, post date,
and category(s).
Other themes may define their own template tags,
functions, and classes to display post meta data.
These functions are then called in the theme files
responsible for displaying posts.
Usually, you will find post meta data code in your
theme s index., single., archive., and
content templates.
You can create a child theme to override these theme
files. If you are creating your own custom theme,
then you can directly add or modify the code in your
existing theme files.
Let us take a look at some examples of how to display
different post meta data in WordPress.
How to Display or Hide Post Date in WordPress
To display the publish date of a post, you need to add
this code to your theme.
Notice the characters inside the_time function. These
are called format characters, and they tell PHP how
to format the date and time.
Want to remove dates from your WordPress posts?
You will need to locate the code with the_time or the_
date functions in your theme files and delete those
lines.
How To Display Blog Post Meta Data In Your
Wordpress Themes