It’s 2021 now — Happy New Year! If you’ve just noticed that your website’s footer still shows last year’s copyright, you’re not alone. We had the exact same issue at my website development and video editing company Growthworx.
Quick context: Growthworx is a digital services agency, and we build custom websites for businesses with attention to detail. We’re one of the top website developers out there, and we can pretty much handle anything you throw at us. Okay, sorry — I’m getting off-topic. Let’s get back to the guide.
To update your copyright year automatically, follow these steps:
1. First, log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Click on Appearance, then Theme Editor — as shown in the screenshot below.
3. Select the theme you want to edit.
4. Locate the functions.php file and click on it.
5. Scroll down to the very end of functions.php.
6. Add the custom code below at the end of the file.
function year_shortcode () {
$year = date_i18n ('Y');
return $year;
}
add_shortcode ('year', 'year_shortcode');7. Click Update to save the changes.
8. Now head back to wherever you want the current year to display. In my case, I want to update the copyright year in my website’s footer, so I’ll go edit the footer.
9. Simply add [year] wherever you want the current year to appear. In my case, I’ll replace 2020 with [year] and save the changes.
As you can see in the image above, my footer now shows 2021 — and it’ll automatically update to 2022 when the new year arrives. I’m sure you’ve nailed this too. Cheers, and congrats! Share this with friends who don’t know the trick yet, and let me know your thoughts in the comments. If you run into any issues, I’d be happy to help fix them. I also professionally find and fix 404 errors and broken links on WordPress websites.
Happy ending! No more Googling “How to update your current copyright year automatically?” come 2022.