Tomorrow every typed copyright year is out of date again. Have it made automatic, then check what else carries a date: holiday notices, Christmas offers, titles with 2019 in them, and booking forms that stop at December 31.

Midnight tonight

It is the last day of 2019, and at midnight the line at the bottom of a great many small business websites will be a year out of date again.

A year ago, the first post on this blog was about footers that still said 2018. On many sites the fix was to type 2019 over it, which works for exactly twelve months.

Tomorrow those footers are wrong again, and the first visitors of 2020 will see it before anybody at the business is back at work.

Visitors still read it the same way: as a small sign of whether anybody is minding the business. This time, fix it for good.

Making the year update itself

The footer year can come from the website rather than being typed into it. A short instruction asks the server for the current year each time a page is built, and the footer is never wrong again.

On a WordPress site the year usually lives in the theme's footer or a footer widget. Many themes and page builders offer a setting or a shortcode for the current year that does the same job.

A site built from plain pages can do the same with a line of script, added wherever the footer is kept.

Edits made directly to a theme's files can be wiped out by its next update. Whoever maintains the site should make the change in a child theme or a footer setting, where it survives.

One detail catches people out. A site that caches its pages may keep showing 2019 until the cache is cleared, so clear it on the first morning of the year.

Dated details that expire tonight

The fifth costs the most, and it is the hardest to see. A calendar set up last January to run for the year simply stops offering dates, and a customer trying to book in February finds nothing to choose.

Forms and calendars that end tonight

Booking tools, event calendars and registration forms are often set up with an end date. Somebody entered the season's dates a year ago, and nobody has entered the next ones.

The form does not break visibly. It shows no available times, or a list of years that ends at 2019, and the customer assumes the business is full or closed.

Coupon codes and gift card offers set to expire at the end of the year carry the same trap when the site goes on promoting them in January.

The test takes two minutes: from a phone, try to book something in February, all the way to the confirmation.

Titles that carry the year

Pages called 2019 price list or Summer programs 2019 look a year old from tomorrow, in the browser tab and in search results.

Update the wording. If the year is also in the page's address, change the title and keep the address, because a new address needs a redirect from the old one or links lead to an error page.

Better still, leave the year out of addresses altogether. A page at a plain address can be updated every year without losing anything.

A worked example

A martial arts school in a strip mall checked its site yesterday.

The footer said 2019, typed. The trial class booking form offered dates only up to December, because it had been set up for the fall session in August. The schedule page was titled Fall 2019 classes.

A banner said the school was closed until January 6. The about page said eleven years teaching in the neighbourhood, a figure typed the previous winter.

The year was made automatic, with the cache set to clear on New Year's Day. The form was given January dates and tested with a real booking from a phone.

The page became Class schedule, with session dates in the text. Eleven years became since 2008, which never needs changing, and the banner is set to come down on the morning of the sixth.

Words that age overnight

Some dates hide in ordinary sentences.

Anything written this year as this year, such as new this year or our biggest year yet, means last year from tomorrow. So does a news item promising something in the new year.

A count of years in business goes stale every January. A founding year never does, and it says the same thing.

Prices that change on January 1 belong on the site the morning they take effect, not the week after a customer quotes the old figure back.

Outside the website

A few dated details live elsewhere and are seen just as early.

The holiday auto-reply on the business email, still announcing a closure a week after the office reopened. The pinned Christmas post at the top of the Facebook page. A cover photo full of snowflakes in February.

Special holiday hours on a Google My Business listing end on their own, which is one good reason to set them there rather than editing the regular hours.

The counter-case

Some sites have almost nothing dated, and their check takes five minutes.

The copyright line itself matters little legally, since copyright in Canada exists as soon as a work is created. And an automatic year does not make a stale site current; it only stops the footer giving the game away.

But early January is when visitors are most likely to notice a date, and most of these details take minutes to fix.

Make the year automatic, and check every other date before the first customer of 2020 does.

Before the first customer of 2020

  1. Make the footer year automatic.
  2. Clear the site's cache on January 1.
  3. Book a test appointment in February.
  4. Search the site for 2019.
  5. Take down holiday notices the day you reopen.
  6. Turn off the holiday auto-reply.
  7. Book the July check in the calendar.

Step four is the one that finds what nobody remembers. A Google search for site: followed directly by your domain, then 2019, lists the pages Google knows that mention the year, including ones that have dropped out of the menu.

The January version of this check, and why visitors notice these details at all, is in your footer still says 2018.

Frequently asked questions

How do I make the footer year update itself?

Have whoever maintains the site replace the typed year with a short instruction that asks the server for the current year, set in a child theme or a footer setting.

Why might the old year still show tomorrow?

Because a site that caches its pages keeps serving the saved copy until the cache is cleared. Clear it on the first morning of the year.

What else goes out of date tonight?

Holiday notices, Christmas offers and delivery cutoffs, titles with 2019 in them, January price changes, years-in-business counts, and forms or booking calendars that stop at December 31.

Why are booking forms the biggest risk?

A calendar set up to run for one year simply stops offering dates. Customers see nothing to book and assume the business is full or closed.

Should the year be in a page address?

Better not. If it already is, change the title and keep the address, since a new address needs a redirect or old links lead to an error page.

How do I find every mention of 2019?

In Google, search for site: followed directly by your domain, then 2019. The results show the pages Google knows that mention the year, including pages no longer in the menu.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Footer year still typed in by hand?

Send us your site address today. We will make the year automatic and list every other date a January visitor will notice.

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