Trust fix guide
Stale Copyright or Date Pattern
Page contains an outdated copyright year or date reference, making the site look abandoned or unmaintained to visitors.
Issue ID: CT-STALE-DATE-001
Severity: minor
Impact: Med
Effort: S
Use this article when
- You need deeper remediation guidance than the issue card can show.
- You want CMS-specific steps before handing the fix to a developer.
- You want a repeatable re-check path after shipping the change.
What this issue is
Page contains an outdated copyright year or date reference, making the site look abandoned or unmaintained to visitors.
Why it matters
Page contains an outdated copyright year or date reference, making the site look abandoned or unmaintained to visitors. This affects buyer confidence and whether a visitor feels comfortable contacting or buying from you.
How we detect it
- FreeSiteAudit flags this issue when the rule for CT-STALE-DATE-001 fails and the page evidence points to Dom body.
- You can usually confirm this by checking the page source or the relevant page settings inside your CMS.
Evidence examples
Check the affected page source, rendered output, or relevant CMS setting to confirm the missing or incorrect element.
How to fix it
- 1Update the copyright year in the footer to the current year
- 2Use dynamic date rendering (e.g., new Date().getFullYear()) to auto-update
- 3Review any "Last updated" dates and refresh stale content
How to re-check it
- Confirm footer copyright shows the current year
Related tools
This issue is best verified with the full FreeSiteAudit crawl rather than a single-point mini tool.