What do you think when you visit a website and see “Copyright 2005″? Most people assume that the site is not being maintained and they may quickly click away, in search of more relevant information.
Changing the copyright date on your site each year is a simple but important task. Better yet, with one line of code you can make your WordPress site automatically update with the new year. (It can be a little more complicated in sites that do not use PHP, but I have a suggestion for you, too.)
Copyright notices on my sites use this format:
Copyright © {year site established} – {current year} {my name or company name}
Here is how to put this type of copyright notice on your site.
If you are using WordPress or another PHP program for your site, the code is simple:
Copyright © 1998 - <!--?php echo date("Y"); ?--> <a href="http://www.IdeaLady.com">Cathy Stucker</a>
Copy and paste the above code into your footer file, changing 1998 to the year your site was established, IdeaLady.com to your blog or website name (I link from this blog to my primary site) and Cathy Stucker to your name. This will add the copyright statement to the footer on every page of your site.
If you are running a site written in HTML, one way to automatically change your copyright date is with Javascript.
Copyright &copy 1998 -<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">// <![CDATA[
var today = new Date()
var year = today.getFullYear()
document.write(year)
// ]]></script><a href="http://www.IdeaLady.com">Cathy Stucker</a>
Make the same changes suggested above, then copy and paste this code wherever you want the copyright notice to appear in your site, such as the footer file.
This is a great “set it and forget” solution to keep your site current.
