Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Sitewide footer links - bad or not?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Sitewide footer links - bad or not?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    7
    7
    26005
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • activitysuper
      activitysuper last edited by

      Hi,

      Sitewide footer links, is this bad for SEO?

      Basically I see all the time the main navigation repeated in the footer, sometimes as almost something to just fill the footer up.

      Is this bad for SEO (im guessing it is) and can you explain why you think it is?

      Cheers

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • newwhy
        newwhy Subscriber last edited by

        I think it's erroneous to say that users don't want to see "built by" in the footer. I am often curious about who built or designed a website, and seeing that in the footer helps me navigate there. How does Google decide what a user wants to see or doesn't want to see? If a link is clicked on often, by a variety of IP addresses, could that indicate that it's a useful link and shouldn't be discounted, even if it's in the footer?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • kumidiaweb
          kumidiaweb last edited by

          Quite curious with this as I see no definite answer to this.

          Let's say that I build a site for a client and place a footer that says  "built by me"...

          Will that footer link impact my rankings?

          But just to be safe possibly a rel="nofollow" would be an option. Would like to hear your opinion on this.

          Thanks!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • bradkrussell
            bradkrussell last edited by

            You say "Basically I see all the time the main navigation repeated in the footer, sometimes as almost something to just fill the footer up." - you have to remember that only the first link on the page to a specific URL is counted. So if a link is repeated in the footer, it's worthless (from a SEO point of view, it may be beneficial for user experience/navigation).

            The days of linking key terms in the footer are numbered, don't think SEO, think user experience.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DCochrane
              DCochrane last edited by

              You should pick your top 10-20 most important pages on your website & link them from your footer. Since the homepage normally has the most domain authority you want to try to pass along some of the authority to the other pages within your site that you want to rank.

              Don't put too many links in the footer as this will over-dilute the home page link juice.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • irvingw
                irvingw last edited by

                it is not bad if you are doing internal linking and not anchor text spamming in the footer links. It can be used to pass PR to more important pages but should mostly be though of as providing the user a better experience when navigating your site.

                footer links are bad for SEO when linking to other sites or when other sites link to you since that creates hundreds, thousands or even millions of links with the same anchor text. it's an old SEO tactic that no longer works

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • donford
                  donford last edited by

                  Linking to pages in the footer generates more links which dilutes link juice passed to all pages that are linked to. Usually the footer is where non-important SEO pages are located but important pages for customer experience like, accounts / support / contact / privacy / terms of service / legal.

                  You should always side with the USER EXPERIENCE it should not be frustrating for your users to find what they are looking for. Taking that into consideration you should also keep the links to less important SEO pages sitewide to a minimum and not duplicate your navigation unless it makes sense from a usability standpoint. Other-words don't do it to fill up space.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • theLotter

                    Multiple Internal links to same destinations

                    My company is redoing our homepage and there will be 4 links to our main play pages (5 games).  2 in the menu and 2 within the content. I was thinking I should no follow one of the links on the homepage + 1 in the menu so that we don't have link dilution from having multiple internal links to the same destination within 1 page. Does this make sense? Any downside of this or suggestions of a solution that may be more effective? Thanks!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter
                    0
                  • Mark_Ch

                    Link Juice + multiple links pointing to the same page

                    Scenario
                    The website has a menu consisting of 4 links Home | Shoes | About Us | Contact Us Additionally within the body content we write about various shoe types. We create a link with the anchor text "Shoes" pointing to www.mydomain.co.uk/shoes In this simple example, we have 2 instances of the same link pointing to the same url location.
                    We have 4 unique links.
                    In total we have 5 on page links. Question
                    How many links would Google count as part of the link juice model?
                    How would the link juice be weighted in terms of percentages?
                    If changing the anchor text in the body content to say "fashion shoes" have a different impact? Any other advise or best practice would be appreciated. Thanks Mark

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
                    0
                  • M_D_Golden_Peak

                    Do 404 Pages from Broken Links Still Pass Link Equity?

                    Hi everyone, I've searched the Q&A section, and also Google, for about the past hour and couldn't find a clear answer on this. When inbound links point to a page that no longer exists, thus producing a 404 Error Page, is link equity/domain authority lost? We are migrating a large eCommerce website and have hundreds of pages with little to no traffic that have legacy 301 redirects pointing to their URLs. I'm trying to decide how necessary it is to keep these redirects. I'm not concerned about the page authority of the pages with little traffic...I'm concerned about overall domain authority of the site since that certainly plays a role in how the site ranks overall in Google (especially pages with no links pointing to them...perfect example is Amazon...thousands of pages with no external links that rank #1 in Google for their product name). Anyone have a clear answer? Thanks!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak
                    0
                  • underscorelive

                    Outbound link to PDF vs outbound link to page

                    If you're trying to create a site which is an information hub, obviously linking out to authoritative sites is a good idea. However, does linking to a PDF have the same effect? e.g Linking to Google's SEO starter guide PDF, as opposed to linking to a google article on SEO. Thanks!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | underscorelive
                    0
                  • nbeske

                    Site wide footer links vs. single link for websites we design

                    I’ve been running a web design business for the past 5 years, 90% or more of the websites we build have a “web design by” link in the footer which links back to us using just our brand name or the full “web design by brand name” anchor text. I’m fully aware that site-wide footer links arent doing me much good in terms of SEO, but what Im curious to know is could they be hurting me? More specifically I’m wondering if I should do anything about the existing links or change my ways for all new projects, currently we’re still rolling them out with the site-wide footer links. I know that all other things being equal (1 link from 10 domains > 10 links from 1 domain) but is (1 link from 10 domains > 100 links from 10 domains)? I’ve got a lot of branded anchor text, which balances out my exact match and partial match keyword anchors from other link building nicely. Another thing to consider is that we host many of our clients which means there are quite a few on the same server with a shared IP. Should I? 1.) Go back into as many of the sites as I can and remove the link from all pages except the home page or a decent PA sub page- keeping a single link from the domain. 2.) Leave all the old stuff alone but start using the single link method on new sites. 3.) Scratch the site credit and just insert an exact-match anchor link in the body of the home page and hide with with CSS like my top competitor seems to be doing quite successfully. (kidding of course.... but my competitor really is doing this.)

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nbeske
                    0
                  • cprodigy29

                    Where to link to HTML Sitemap?

                    After searching this morning and finding unclear answers I decided to ask my SEOmoz friends a few questions. Should you have an HTML sitemap? If so, where should you link to the HTML sitemap from? Should you use a noindex, follow tag? Thank you

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cprodigy29
                    0
                  • attorney

                    Are dropdown menus bad for SEO

                    I have an ecommerce shop here: http://m00.biz/UHuGGC I've added a submenu for each major category and subcategory of items for sale. There are over 60 categories on that submenu. I've heard that loading this (and the number of links) before the content is very bad for SEO. Some will place the menu below the content and use absolute positioning to put the menu where it currently is now. It's a bit ridiculous in doing things backwards and wondering if search engines really don't understand. So the question is twofold: (1) Are the links better in a bottom loading sidemenu where they are now? (2) Given the number of links (about 80 in total with all categories and subcategories), is it bad to have the sidemenu show the subcategories which, in this instance, are somewhat important? Should I just go for the drilldown, e.g. show only categories and then show subcategories after? Truth is that users probably would prefer the dropdown with all the categories and second level subcategories, despite the link number and placement.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | attorney
                    1
                  • bodaclick

                    Does 302 pass link juice?

                    Hi! We have our content under two subdomains, one for the English language and one for Spanish. Depending on the language of the browser, there's a 302 redirecting to one of this subdomains. However, our main domain (which has no content) is receiving a lot of links - people rather link to mydomain.com than to en.mydomain.com. Does the 302 passing any link juice? If so, to which subdomain? Thank you!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bodaclick
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.