Footer still says © 2019? The detail that asks 'are they open?'
It is the smallest thing on this list, and we keep finding it: award-winning wineries and busy salons whose footers read © 2015, © 2018, © 2019.
Nobody decides not to buy because of a footer. What happens is quieter: the visitor, already unsure whether your hours or menu are current, gets one more nudge toward "this site is abandoned — is the business?"
Why it costs you customers
Local business sites are read like notice boards: people are checking if the information is alive. A stale year casts doubt on everything above it — hours, prices, the lot.
It also signals no one has touched the site in years, which for many owners is true — and is the honest root problem this little symptom points at.
Check it in 30 seconds
Scroll to your own footer right now.
Our free check reads the year and does the maths.
How to fix it
Change the number. Ninety seconds in any editor.
Make it automatic with one line of JavaScript: document.getElementById("year").textContent = new Date().getFullYear() — or your platform's dynamic-year option. Set and forget.
Read the rest of the footer with fresh eyes. We have found footers naming a different business entirely — leftovers from the template the site was built from.
Treat the stale year as a smoke alarm rather than the fire. If the year drifted, hours, menus and prices probably drifted too — a 20-minute audit of "is everything on this site still true?" is the real payoff.