What is a Footer Link?

The footer is the most predictable part of a website: visitors scroll to the bottom expecting contact details, policies, and shortcuts. That predictability is its job. A footer that surfaces the pages people look for, like the one in the diagram above, improves navigation on every page.

Do footer links help SEO?

They help, but not the way most people assume. Internal footer links give crawlers a reliable path to important pages and help search engines understand how a site is organized. Ranking-wise, Google has said it treats a link as a link wherever it sits on the page, footer included. A footer link is a floor, not a boost: it keeps pages from being orphaned but earns no extra weight for its position.

When do footer links hurt?

When they're external, site-wide, and keyword-stuffed. Cramming exact-match anchor text into a footer that appears on thousands of pages is a pattern Google's link spam policies call out. It shows up in agency credits, widget links, and "partner" link exchanges. Internal links carry no such risk; the danger is external.

What belongs in a footer?

The pages people expect to find there: contact information, privacy policy and terms, an about page, and shortcuts to your most-used sections. Ecommerce sites add shipping and returns. Keep the list short enough to scan; a footer with a hundred links helps no one and dilutes the few that matter. Anchor text should name the page plainly, like "Contact us." Avoid keyword phrases.