Just over a week ago, we welcomed 2011. With all the excitement and planning for your website, did you remember to update your copyright? Out of all the websites that I’ve come across, I have to say that the copyright date has been one of the most poorly maintained elements on most sites.

While we can only speculate whether or not the search engines use the copyright date as part of the score they give your website, it’s important to at least show your customers that you’re conscious about keeping the site up to date. Studies have also shown that people look at the copyright date range to see how long you’ve been in business.

So start this year off right with some housekeeping and change your copyright date! If it’s one of those pesky things that you always forget at the start of each year, consider asking your webmaster to create some dynamic code to automatically update the date each year.