Having the copyright year update automatically on your WordPress website is a great feature because it will stop your website from looking like its old and outdated.
In WordPress, add this snippet from CSS-Tricks to your functions.php file:
function year_shortcode() { $year = date('Y'); return $year; } add_shortcode('year', 'year_shortcode');
Not sure where functions.php can be found? Go to Appearance -> Theme Editor and you should be able to find functions.php in the side menu. Paste the code at the very bottom of the file starting on a new line.
Now, wherever you want to display the date on your site, you can use this shortcode:
[year]
If you want to use it in a template file, you can add this PHP snippet:
<?php echo do_shortcode('year'); ?>