Links At Bottom Of Page, No longer needed? Options

[PVMAA]

Hi Everyone!

I've still been putting text links in the footer of my site pages when designing sites. People tell me they like them because when they get to the bottom of the page they can move to a new page without having to go back up...

I originally did this because I was building navbars with rollovers etc. and wanted to be sure the spiders were able to go to all pages and I've just continued to do it.

Are these no longer necessary? Are they bad? Dated looking? Should I stop?

Thanks!

[BBCoach]

putting text links in the footer of my site pages

Are these no longer necessary? Are they bad? Dated looking? Should I stop?

They're necessary if users say so (especially for long content pages)
They're not bad.
Who cares.
I wouldn't.

[PVMAA]

Thanks! Do you still do this?

[BBCoach]

Yes.

[RiYo]

like BBCoach says, if it helps the clients ... go for it!

If you are doing it to 'help' the Search Engines ... forget about it!

Richard

[Randy]

I still provide bottom-of-the-page links on many of my sites. Most actually.

Of course I've always done that a bit differently than most in the SEO field. Almost everybody else seems to load up the bottom of the page with links to all sorts of ancillary pages in an attempt to get the spiders to consider those pages as being more important, being linked to from the home page. When I use a bottom nav block I typically have it linking to just the major pages of the site, my jumping off points most people like to use.

[BBCoach]

Of course I've always done that a bit differently than most in the SEO field. Almost everybody else seems to load up the bottom of the page with links to all sorts of ancillary pages in an attempt to get the spiders to consider those pages as being more important, being linked to from the home page. When I use a bottom nav block I typically have it linking to just the major pages of the site, my jumping off points most people like to use.

I do the exact same thing. For me it's not about SEO so much, but to help customers by giving them quicker/easier access to the major areas of the site. Particularly, when the page is a long page due to content or number of products in a category. I cringe everytime I see a website with 20+ links on the footer of each page. To me that's a bad user interface design. Why? Because there's one thing I've learned doing ecommerce sites and that is there will always be a significant portion of visitors that DON'T READ what's in front of them, or they are very poor readers and can't comprehend two+ syllable words.

[qwerty]

People tell me they like them

That's reason enough to continue using them.

[oneofthe3lions]

A lot of it is common sense. Will the visitors like them if they start to become too many and look spammy and cluttered?

I personally wouldnt keep adding to this section as you create pages (hoping to give it an initial boost) I would as suggested by some perhaps point to your main header categories. Another idea that I use myself is to put a top of the page link there so the viewer can get to the top of the page immediatly to the main navigation structure (usually) along with a link to your sitemap perhaps.

I am only speculating but it seems to me that links included in a 'footer' are not valued as much or followed as quickly.

[mking]

What is the SEO value of links at the bottom of a page?

It seems commonplace for sites to put a keyword rich link in the footer that points back to the homepage.

I've noticed the redesigned High Rankings site has a text link (SEO), which points back to the homepage content but with a different URL than the main index. The link goes to /site/index.php. Is there a value to this? Any concern about having two separate URLs with the homepage content?

As someone working to learn SEO through observation, trial and error, I'm eager to hear any thoughts on this.

[PVMAA]

I am only speculating but it seems to me that links included in a 'footer' are not valued as much or followed as quickly.

That's the thing. I started doing text links at the bottom years ago because I was doing rollovers on the navbar, etc. And I just have kept on doing them out of habit. Since people would tell me that they liked having them so they could move on to another page without having to go back to the navbar, so I have continued. I tend to do information heavy sites (which definitely helps with rankings) and I often have fairly long pages. I always have "back to top" links at the bottom of the pages as well. And if the site is large, I'll just have text links to the primary pages.

But I don't see these on other sites so much anymore so I wondered if there was any consensus on this. I appreciate everyone's comments!

[Jill]

I've noticed the redesigned High Rankings site has a text link (SEO), which points back to the homepage content but with a different URL than the main index. The link goes to /site/index.php. Is there a value to this? Any concern about having two separate URLs with the homepage content?

If we have that, thanks for pointing it out, as it's a mistake! I will go seek it out and make sure the developers fix that asap!

All links back home on any site should always go to the root domain. Unfortunately, many cms's etc. don't do that right out of the box and need some fixing. I thought we caught all those, but I guess not!

Thanks for the head's up!

[rolf]

I often use links at the bottom of the page to point to the more functional/mundane/administrative content, such as legal notices, sitemap, contact us etc. It seems to work well as a point of reference everyone is familiar with, and makes almost all pages available within a couple of clicks from anywhere. I also have the feeling that making this type of content so easily available shows that you're up-front and you've got nothing to hide - although I've not tested that so it's just a theory.

I don't tend to consider the SEO benefits (apart from the security of knowing that everything is easily spiderable), and I don't do it every time, but whenever it fits in with the design I feel it's a useful part of the navigation. JMHO

[Live Costa Rica!]

I do the same thing. I always try to put a "Site Map" type of deal on the bottom of my pages. The reason why is not for SEO as many have stated. It adds to customer convenience as well as the remote possibility the customer "might" click on one of those links and read more lowering my bounce rate percentage. Ultimately, what good is my SEO if n o customers stay at the site less than a minute.

[Jill]

Personally, for most sites I think a sitemap at the bottom of pages is ugly and unnecessary.