It’s officially the start of a new year!

Perhaps you are like me and it can take a few days or weeks to actually remember to write down the new year’s date instead of the previous. Thankfully digital tools for things like payments and document signing have made it a bit easier, but there is one thing that I see often getting forgot about at the start of the new year…

Don’t forget to update your website copyright date!

Or better yet: make it automatically update!

Okay, if you’re like me you don’t really WANT to have to remember to update the year on your website. So I’m going to show you how to use a bit of code to do the work for you on Squarespace, ShowIt and WordPress.

Just don’t forget to change “Your Company Name Here” to your own company name 🙂

Squarespace

Using the markdown block, or code block if you have a plan that supports it, add the following code to your footer:

<p>&copy; <script>document.write(new Date().getFullYear())</script> Your Company Name Here</p>

DOESN’T LOOK LIKE IT IS SHOWING UP?
When you put it in you may think it did not work because the year is not showing, but don’t worry. Click save and type in your website link in a new browser you’ll be happy to scroll down the footer and see that it is there!

Showit

Add an embed code section where you desire to have it displayed and add the following code:

<p>&copy;<script>document.write(new Date().getFullYear())</script> Your Company Name </p>

WordPress

Ok, this one is a bit more techy, and it is really important to note that any time you are diving into the code of a website and you are unfamiliar with how it works, there is potential to cause problems on your website. So for this one if you are not familiar with code I would highly recommend having a website professional help you out with this one.

Why is this a bit more techy? Because it involves making sure you have what is called a child theme, then accessing or adding a specific file within it called footer.php to add this code to the footer of your website:

&copy; <?php echo date(“Y”); ?> Your Company Name Here

The purpose of the child theme is allow the custom code to remain present when completing theme updates. Otherwise it could disappear and you have to keep adding it again!

FOR MY CLIENTS – GOOD NEWS!
This is something I will have done for you if I built the website, or can do as part of monthly changes for my website maintenance clients. If you’d like to know more information on my monthly website maintenance packages complete the form on my connect page and I’ll be in touch!

If you want to go about it on your own I’ll try and make it as easy to understand as possible, but as a reminder there is potential to cause issues on your website, including not being able to log in if you are not confident in what you are doing. Please make sure your website is backed up before proceeding.

1. If you don’t have a child theme you will need to create one.
   • The Child Theme Configurator plugin can help. They also have a walkthrough and trouble shooting video here.
   • OR here is a video walkthrough to create the child theme manually
2. If you don’t have a footer.php file in your child theme you will need to create one
   • Via your FTP (File Transfer Protocol) like Filezilla or File manager in your website hosting copy the footer.php file from your theme and paste it in the child theme folder in the exact placement it is in the theme folder.For example: if your footer.php file is inside a folder called Footer in your theme, then it should be in a folder called Footer in the child theme as well. Note that other than the functions.php file, any other php files are completely replacing the ones in the parent theme. So this should be done with caution.

      

3. Find your footer.php file
   • From the WordPress dashboard under appearance > theme editor,  select child theme and find the footer.php file
4. Add the code mentioned above and save

Alright, one less thing to worry about each new year 😉🎉