The copyright date that displays at the bottom of every website should be added when the website is built and then never thought about again. It is easy to insert code to set the date to the current year so that it never needs to be updated. Many websites do not take advantage of doing this though, creating a regular website maintenance task of having to update the copyright date annually.
Not keeping this updated is lazy, and can make users question if the content on the site is maintained.
This can be accomplished with simple code snippets.
Using Javascript
© <script type="text/javascript">document.write( new Date().getFullYear());</script>
Using PHP
© <?= date("Y") ?>
The result looks like:
© 2022
Using a page builder can complicate inserting code into a page (since a purpose of a page builder is to separate code for non technical users) . Elementor is a common page builder used with WordPress open source software. (almost 6.5 million sites use Elementor.)
I’m going to walk you through getting rid of this regular website maintenance task by dynamically inserting it within an Elementor text widget.
How to insert a dynamic copyright with Elementor
Step 1
Open your footer template and select the Text Editor widget.
Step 2
Do not add any text in the editor. Instead, click the dynamic icon (#1) and then Current Date Time (#2).
Step 3
Select Custom for the date format. Change the format to capital Y.
Step 4
Click on Advanced. Before the date enter the copyright symbol. Using this text, it will automatically convert to the symbol.
©
After the date, add a period and All Rights Reserved.
Click save. That’s it. You can check this regular website maintenance task off your list moving forward.
