Simplest Way to Build Custom Archives Page?

I would suggest taking a look at the Template Hierarchy structure to fully understand WHY archive.php overwrites certain pages (although it shouldn’t overwrite search results)

If you wanted to go a custom template direction (might be the best way) I would do something like this

create a monthly-arcive.php file and paste the following (you can name it whatever)

/**
 * Template Name: Monthly Archive
 */
  //get the header
 get_header();

//normal WordPress loop 
if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); 
    the_content();
endwhile; 
endif; ?>

//show the archive list
<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>

//get footer
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Then create a new page and select “Monthly Archive as its template and you should be all set.

Things to note: You will need to style the custom template to match your other pages you may even want to start out by making a copy of another page. You should also look at wp_get_archive() in the Codex for more examples.

Hopefully that helps.

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