Many people may consider this a minor issue but from a branding and professionalism level, making sure your blog has the correct year on the copyright notice is very important. Now that we’re in 2009, it’s time to update that notice.
For most bloggers, this is a fairly simple task of logging onto the blog server and editing the footer.php file. The problem is, because this is done only once per year, many bloggers will forget to do it. However, there is a simple way to make the copyright notice update automatically.
All you have to do is FTP into your blog and open the footer.php file. Find the part with the copyright notice and replace it with the following.
Copyright © <?php echo date(‘Y’); ?> Blog Name
Instead of hard coding 2009 into the copyright notice, you replace it with <?php echo date(‘Y’); ?>, which will automatically pull in the year from your server. Hopefully, your server is showing right year. If not, you’ll have to get your admin or web host to adjust the time. In my case, I like to do my copyright from the year the blog started. The code will look like this.
Copyright © 2005 – <?php echo date(‘Y’); ?> John Chow, Inc.
Now, instead of trying to remember to update the copyright notice at the start of every year, the blog will do it automatically. That is, as long as the clock on the server is correct. 
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