How to Set Your Joomla Website Copyright Date to Update Itself Automatically

Usually, on or around the first day of every new year, if you have one or more Joomla-powered websites, you would be wise to update the copyright statement date to the new year. However, copyright updating can become a tedious though necessary task. Moreover, if you have multiple websites to consider, then this one seemingly simple chore can soon turn into a time-consuming routine. For small business people especially, your time is arguably better used elsewhere. So, here's a quick fix.

With just a simple line of website code, here's a quick way that you can ensure your website copyright date automatically updates itself at the start of every new year, leaving you free to focus on more profitable activities - like earning a living, creating value, serving customers and clients, having more fun and generally creating a richer, more engaging quality of life.

In this short training tutorial, we'll use our own website here at www.InternetTIPS.com as an example to help illustrate how to make the update.

A word of caution: before attempting to carry out changes like those illustrated below, do ensure that you have an up to date website backup that is easily accessible to you. Also, do be aware that since we are working on website code, any changes must be precise and accurate. Any errors made have the potential to damage a website, so do take care when editing your own website.

Step 1: Identify Where Your Website Copyright Date is Located

Here at www.InternetTIPS.com, we have chosen to display a copyright statement and associated date toward the bottom of every website page. Because we're using the Joomla Web Content Management System (CMS), we need only add the line of code once to the web design template, to ensures that the copyright message displays automatically on every page.

Before we carried out the update outlined in this article, the website HTML code that displayed the copyright statement and date is shown below:

& amp ; copy ; 1998 - 2009 Brian Austin. All rights Reserved Worldwide.

Please note: purely for illustration purposes and to prevent display errors on this page, at the start of the line above, I've deliberately inserted a single space between the following characters: "&", "amp", ";"copy" and the second semicolon ";". Normally, in the live web page, there will be no spaces between each of the items identified above. So remember, in your code, do double-check to make sure there are no spaces where indicated, in order to display the copyright symbol.

When the code (no spaces for the copyright symbol) is inserted into a website template, here's what actually displays:

© 1998 - 2009 Brian Austin. All rights Reserved Worldwide.

Consider how when the "&" symbol, followed by the word "copy", followed by the semicolon symbol ";" is correctly inserted into your web design code, the copyright symbol: © is displayed.

However, using this method, the date or date range is still required to be updated manually. So let's explore how we can add a single line of code to have the website automatically update itself every year.

Step 2: Adding the Code to Automatically Update Your Website Copyright Date

Using our example above, instead of using:

© 1998 - 2009 Your name. All rights Reserved Worldwide.

... we would edit the line of code in our web design template to read:

Copyright © 1998 - <?php echo date('Y');?> Your Name. All rights Reserved Worldwide.

When the web design template is saved and then the result viewed on the live website, we would see:

Copyright © 1998 - 2009 Your Name. All rights Reserved Worldwide.

Although little seems to have changed, in practice, when installed correctly, thereafter, your website will update the copyright year date for you.

To see the latest changes on your website, you may also need to choose your web browser "Refresh" or "Reload" command or button, to force the web page to display the latest version of the page you're viewing.

You can replace the "Your Name" text above with either your own name or website domain name or even both. Here's a finished practical example:

Copyright © 1998 - 2009  Brian Austin. All rights Reserved Worldwide.

You can see more handy tips like this at www.InternetTIPS.com.

InternetTIPS.com is a unique, plain English "How to" resource designed to help you create a profitable, interactive Web 2.0 website rich in engaging content, community and commerce.

Brian Austin is a member of both the Society of Authors and the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators. He has over 25,000 hours of extensive experience combining the disciplines of web site design, search engine optimization, and creating remarkable, compelling content interwoven with persuasive writing.

Whether you're an individual, small- or medium-sized business or organization, we can work with you to design, create and populate a "ready-to-go" website that you can be proud of.

Moreover, for no additional cost, clients who order website design services, can also enjoy full access to our member-only area containing a growing vault of downloadable resources including: 9,000 articles, 1,500 marketing strategies, plain English training tutorial videos, software, ebooks and more! To discuss your project, in the first instance, to ensure we don't miss your emails, please contact Brian using our web Contact form.