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Website copyright year in the footer: does it matter?

SiteSmith · · 5 min read

The copyright year in your website footer does not decide whether your work is protected, but it does matter to customers. A footer reading "© 2017" tells a visitor, fairly or not, that nobody has looked after the site in years, and they start wondering whether the business is still open, whether the prices are current and whether anyone will answer the phone. Updating it takes a minute. Below is what the line means, what to write, how to stop it going stale, and the other dates on a site that send the same message.

In the United States, the words and photos on your website are protected by copyright from the moment they are created. You do not need the © symbol or a year for that protection to exist. The notice is a reminder, not a requirement, and has been for decades.

The traditional form is:

  • the © symbol (or the word "Copyright"),
  • the year the work was first published,
  • the name of the owner, usually your business's legal name.

For example: © 2014 Riverside Glass & Mirror LLC. Some businesses use a range that runs from the first year to the current one, for example © 2014–2026, to show the site has been updated since it first went up.

If you have a specific question about protecting your content, such as photos someone copied or a competitor using your text, that is one for an attorney who handles intellectual property. For the footer, the practical question is simply what visitors see.

Why customers notice an old year

People who are about to call a business they have never used are looking for reasons to trust it, and reasons not to. They scan quickly. The footer is often the last thing on a page, and it is exactly where someone looks when they scroll down for a phone number or address. An old year there is one of the easiest signs of neglect to spot.

It plants questions:

  • Is this business still operating?
  • Are these prices and hours still right?
  • If they do not look after their website, do they look after their work?

None of those may be fair. You may be busier than ever. But the visitor does not know that, and they have three other businesses open in other tabs.

What to write

Pick one of these, whichever suits you:

  1. Just the current year: © 2026 Your Business Name. Simple, and fine for most small businesses.
  2. A range: © 2009–2026 Your Business Name. This has a pleasant side effect: it quietly shows how long you have been around.
  3. No year at all: © Your Business Name. Some businesses drop the year to avoid the problem entirely. It is less traditional, but nobody will judge you for it.

Use your business name as customers know it, or your legal name if you prefer. If your legal name and trading name differ, your footer can show both, for example "Riverside Glass, a trading name of RGM Holdings LLC". Your attorney or accountant can tell you whether anything specific is expected for your type of business.

How to change it

Where the footer is edited depends on your platform:

  • WordPress: usually under Appearance, then Customize, then a section named Footer or Site Info. Some themes keep it under Appearance, Widgets, or in the theme's own settings page. If it is not editable there, it may be written into the theme files, which is a job for your web person.
  • Wix, Squarespace and similar builders: the footer is a section of the page. Scroll to the bottom in the editor, click on the text and type. It changes on every page at once.
  • A site built by a designer with no editor: send them a short email. It is a two-minute change, and a good moment to ask them to make it automatic.

After changing it, check two or three different pages. Older sites sometimes have the footer copied into each page separately, so one page shows 2026 and another still says 2016.

Other dates that give the game away

The copyright year is just the most visible date. While you are looking, check for these, which visitors notice too:

  • A "Latest news" or blog section whose newest post is years old. Either add something current or remove the section from the home page. Should your website have a blog? helps decide.
  • Events and specials that have passed. "Book now for our spring 2022 open house" is worse than no event at all.
  • Old notices. Temporary messages about closures, health rules or "new hours due to staffing" that stayed up long after they stopped applying.
  • "New for" lines. "New for 2020: we now offer financing" ages quickly. Just say "We offer financing".
  • Photos with dated details: old vehicles, old logos, staff who left long ago.
  • Social media feeds embedded on the page that show your last post from years back. If you no longer post there, remove the feed and keep a simple link.
  • Reviews that are all from the same old year. Add a few recent ones.
  • An old date in the page title or in a headline, such as "Best of 2019".

These are small, but together they build the impression, before anyone reads a word about your services, that the site has been left behind. Old website warning signs customers notice first covers the wider list.

Updating the year is worth doing, but it does not make an old site new. If the footer says 2026 and the rest of the page still looks like it did a decade ago, with small text, a layout that does not fit phones and photos from another era, visitors will still form the same impression. In that case, the year is a sign of the real problem rather than the problem itself.

  • Scroll to the bottom of your home page on your phone and read the footer.
  • Update the year, or make it automatic, or switch to a range.
  • Check two other pages to make sure the change applied everywhere.
  • Look for old events, notices, news posts and "new for" lines, and remove or update them.
  • Add one or two recent reviews or photos.

If cleaning up the dates shows a site that needs more than a new year, you can see your site rebuilt first and compare the two on your phone before you decide.

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