Say Goodbye to Outdated Footer Years, Forever

The manual footer years are helpful; I see them as an indicator of when they were last updated.

Agreed. As a recruiter, it's a useful signal:

If the company hasn't updated it within 2 weeks of the new year, I add it to my priority target list.

If the company hasn't updated their banner by April, I start thinking they're out of business.

Related: I noticed my local yard maintenance service has a website with 2007 in the footer. Impressive.