diff --git a/newspaper/extractors.py b/newspaper/extractors.py
index 07629052..b258d2ab 100644
--- a/newspaper/extractors.py
+++ b/newspaper/extractors.py
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
 from collections import defaultdict
 import copy
 from dateutil.parser import parse as date_parser
+import dateparser
 import logging
 import re
 import urllib.parse
@@ -187,7 +188,7 @@ def parse_date_str(date_str):
             except:
                 # near all parse failures are due to URL dates without a day
                 # specifier, e.g. /2014/04/
-                return None
+                return dateparser.parse(date_str)
 
         date_match = re.search(urls.DATE_REGEX, url)
         if date_match:
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 588f5b5b..e29aa959 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -10,3 +10,4 @@ tldextract>=1.5.1
 feedfinder2>=0.0.4
 jieba3k>=0.35.1
 python-dateutil>=2.4.0
+dateparser>=0.4.0