Preventing 404 error on empty date archive

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On a date archive page when no posts exist (for that date) WordPress throws across to the 404 page.

Is there a way to make WordPress continue to use the original archive instead of the 404. That way I can use if ( have_posts() ) condition to output a “No posts found” message.

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2 comments

  1. You can move the code from OP’s answer into a 404 template filter and force WP to load the date.php file instead of 404.php. It’ll still send the 404 header, but render the page with a different template.

    function wpd_date_404_template( $template = '' ){
    global $wp_query;
    if( isset($wp_query->query['year'])
        || isset($wp_query->query['monthnum'])
        || isset($wp_query->query['day']) ){
            $template = locate_template( 'date.php', false );
    }
    return $template;
}
add_filter( '404_template', 'wpd_date_404_template' );

  2. Okay, on reflection I’m not sure if I’m asking too much of WP. I guess from an SEO point of view I do want empty pages to 404, I certainly don’t want them indexed.

    I decided instead to use the 404 template to output the “No posts found” message, but because the functions is_date(), is_day() (et al) will not work on the 404 page I added this code to detect if the 404 was meant to be a date archive.

    Paste the following into your 404.php to detect the URL:

    global $wp_query;

$is_date_archive = ( isset($wp_query->query['year']) || isset($wp_query->query['monthnum']) || isset($wp_query->query['day']) );

    I can then use the variable $is_date_archive to modify the 404 template accordingly.

    Example (404.php)

    global $wp_query;

$is_date_archive = ( isset($wp_query->query['year']) || isset($wp_query->query['monthnum']) || isset($wp_query->query['day']) );

if( $is_date_archive ){ echo 'No posts found'; } else { echo 'general 404 page'; }

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