Stupid Theme Tricks: Keeping your copyright up to date

One of the things I see constantly when looking at blogs is the outdated copyright. To me there’s nothing that will make me chuckle faster than a copyright notice at the bottom of a blog or website that reads something like:

Copyright 2002 - 2005, some company name. All rights reserved.

This, to me is the epitome of site neglect. It’s also a free license for someone to steal any content on your blog with a dates tamp newer than 2005!

Don’t let this happen to you. If you’re running WordPress (or any other php based platform) the solution couldn’t be simpler. simply add the following code in your footer.php (or wherever your footer code resides.)

<?php echo date(Y); ?>


To show this in context, if your copyright reads:

Copyright 2005 - 2007 MyCompanyName

Find the portion of your footer where the copyright is displayed and make the following changes:

Original
Copyright 2005 - 2007 MyCompanyName


Change to:
Copyright 2005 - <?php echo(Y); ?> MyCompanyName


And there you go, a perpetually correct copyright date. If you’re asking “Do you use this on your blogs?” The answer is… If you see a copyright notice in the footer, I’m using this method, or one very near to it.

I’ll be back on this topic with an even simpler solution in the very near future.

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