The Problem
By default, you have the ability to display your yearly archives by using sidebar widgets. This can get out of hands once you have been blogging for more than a year. Imagine sites like WPBeginner that have been active for nearly 4 years. We would have 48 monthly archive links in the sidebar. You also have the ability to add category archives, author listing, etc on your sidebar. But why clutter the sidebar with so many links when you can create a single page to list them all. This is when a custom archives page come in play. Not only does it allow you to avoid clutter, it also provides your users with an efficient way to browser through your older content.
Sadly, most WordPress themes do not come with a custom archives page template. Let’s look at what you need to create a custom archives page template in WordPress.
Note: Please do not confuse the custom archives with archive.php template that comes with most WordPress themes. The archive.php template is used to display monthly, category, tag, author, and other archive pages. Our custom archives page would be a single page that will bring all of your other archives together.