New Year’s Eve for Webmasters
31 December 2007 – 12:59 pmIt’s New Year’s Eve. Have you thought about what your website is going to look like tomorrow?
The most common new year gaffe appears in the footer of thousands and thousands of websites, an outdated copyright notice.
Webmasters dutifully put the copyright message in the footer of their website template, but most hard-code the text, so that with the new year it must be updated.
THIS year when you update it, solve the problem permanently. Put some code in to automatically put the current year in the footer.
Using PHP, it’s as simple as this:
© 2001-<?php echo date("Y") ?> Company Name
I don’t know if there is an official format for that Copyright text, or if it is even required at all. I usually just go look at the website of a company that I how has LOTS of lawyers and use their format.
I’m also taking this opportunity to get Google Analytics set up on many of my domains to start off with a full year of data.
What other new year rituals do you webmasters have that I should be thinking about?
Happy New Year!
If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my RSS feed
13 Responses to “New Year’s Eve for Webmasters”
Maybe I’m old fashioned, but perhaps some “webmasters” settle in for a nice evening with their loved ones… a little champagne…etc.
Just sayin’.
By Stevie the K on Dec 31, 2007
It’s New Year ! It’s time to make new beginnings and seek new blessings for happiness, peace and prosperity.
Happy New Year! 2008 Is Here & It Sure Is Going To Fly By Quick
Malina Sky,
Your Frequent Reader
By Malina Sky on Jan 1, 2008
Stevie the K, I certainly wasn’t suggesting that “webmasters” forgo their first night activities to do this work.
There was plenty of time during the day for this!
By Scott on Jan 1, 2008
Happy New Year Malina!
By Scott on Jan 1, 2008
Happy new year to everyone!
Nice little php date tip to keep the copyright up to date. I also “benchmark” against the companies that pay millions for lawyers.
By Cheap Web Hosting Phil on Jan 1, 2008
Great idea. I copies the code, only to find out something like it was already in my blog’s footer.
Thanks anyway.
By Shawn on Jan 1, 2008
Oh, man. Thanks for the reminder!
By Shane on Jan 2, 2008
Is it really necessary to have the copyright at all? By not having it are you in effect telling people it is OK to copy your material?
By marijuana on Jan 3, 2008
LOL, thanks for the reminder. Yes, I’m one of those webmasters who hardcoded the copyright notice in the footer. Funny thing, I have it computed in meta tags
By Mapquest on Jan 3, 2008
hey i did compute it in the meta tags as well .. never had this problem arising before
By Aaron on Jan 5, 2008
Thanks for the reminder, I totally forgot!
This is the last year I will be doing it since it’s no longer hard-coded.
By Daniel Skinner on Jan 10, 2008
yeah two weeks in and I think I better get to work on my sites. Thanks for the heads up
By CBR on Jan 16, 2008