A copyright establishes your ownership and rights to the content on your website and helps to protect you legally if your content is stolen. You should keep the copyright updated to show the year the website was started and the current year. Keeping the copyright current helps to establish trust and confidence in the site and business, as it conveys that the site is being maintained and that the information is still accurate.  

The copyright is most commonly included in the site footer and includes the following elements: the copyright symbol and/or the word Copyright, the year the website launched, the current year, and the name or designation of the copyright owner.

Something you DON’T want to have to do is log into your website on January 1st just so that you can update the copyright date to the new year.

Fortunately, there’s an easier way: you can use a little snippet of JavaScript that automatically updates the date for you. Yay, you can sleep in!

 

 

If you are using the DIVI theme builder for your WordPress website, you will add the script to the header of your website.

Log into WordPress and locate the Divi Theme Options area on the dashboard.

Click on the Integrations tab and ensure that the field for “Enable header code” is set to “enabled”.

Scroll down on the Integration tab and locate the area for “Add code to the < head > of your blog.

Paste the script into the field provided, and update the script to include the information for your website.

Click on “Save Changes” when you are done.

<script>
/* add this script in the header code region in the divi theme options */
var beg_year = 2018; // Year site went live
var this_year = new Date(); // Get current date
var developed_by = ‘ | Website design by <a href=”https://www.coyoteholmberg.com” target=”_blank” style=”text-decoration:underline;”>Coyote Holmberg</a>’; // Developer info
this_year = this_year.getFullYear();
if(this_year > beg_year) {
var year = beg_year + ‘ – ‘ + this_year;
} else {
var year = this_year;
}
//var domain = window.location.hostname;
var domain = ‘<a href=”https://www.coyoteholmberg.com” target=”_blank”>www.coyoteholmberg.com</a>’
jQuery(function($){
$(‘#footer-info’).html(‘Copyright &copy; ‘ + year + ‘ – ‘ + domain + ‘. All rights reserved. ‘ + developed_by );
});
// ]]></script>

You will see your new copyright statement after you refresh your website in the browser.