Remembering the changes made to my blog’s theme

This content is 11 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Every year I need to update the copyright notice on my blog, and every year I forget where to do it in the theme for the site.

I should use a dynamic copyright date, as suggested by James Bavington (@jamesbavington):


Or perhaps this more elegant solution highlighted to me by Garry Martin (@garrymartin) but my late night coding changes just broke my blog, so I did it the old way.  Whilst I was at it, I applied an updated version of the theme, so this post is more of a “note to self” of the things I need to change when theme updates come along:

  • Include the various items in the header.php file that are needed for Google (and others) site verification, Google Analytics, Facebook Like button, Google+ badge, better search results, etc.
  • Put back in the style.css stylesheet amendments that adjust colours, etc.
  • Edit the functions.php file to make sure that the footer_link() function has the correct attribution and copyright notice…

One thought on “Remembering the changes made to my blog’s theme

  1. I’m now using the Insert Headers and Footers plugin for the custom header code and a change of theme has let me insert the PHP I really wanted in footer.php (as, unfortunately, the plugin doesn’t place the text where I want it in the footer). For future reference that code is This work is © Mark Wilson 2004-, All Rights Reserved.. Website verification is now handled in the WordPress Tools configuration, and Google Analytics via the Google Analytics Dashboard for WP plugin.

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