How does G treat on-page footer links to your own site?

Footer links pointing to other pages and home page

[Arctrust]

Hey Guys:

This may have been discussed before - but I seem to have missed it or can't seem to find it....

We have a site with a home page that has navigation footer links pointing to all interior pages.

And... by mistake we also had 2 or 3 links on the home page pointing to the SAME home page.

I have since corrected these duplicate links, but I have not removed the footer-navigation links....

Is there any "consensus" as to how Google treats the page or site?

I have noticed that a lot of sites have simply added 1 link for a site map.... is this the "new wave"?

Thanks in advance to all.

ARC

[tedster]

Google definitely takes a closer look at footer links now than they did in the past. For external links, it's a place where sites hide run-of-site paid links. For internal links, it's been a hot spot for anchor text keyword stuffing, and many site owners got their wrists slapped a bit.

However, footer links are also a widely utilized navigation aid, and there's nothing wrong with using them. There's also nothing harmful about linking a home page (or any page) to itself - except that it gives end users a poor usability experience.

[tedster]

I meant to give you some relatively recent threads discussing footer links:

Are Footer Links Now a Problem for Google? [webmasterworld.com]
Google and footer links. repetition - is this bad? [webmasterworld.com]

[Arctrust]

Tedster

Thank you!

Your comments are very re-assuring.

The links you provided are an excellent read on the topic...

Perhaps all the "footer link" questions could be moved to one thread.

Again... Thank you!
ARC

[Tonearm]

My footer is duplicated exactly across all of my pages. Does anyone know if the internal links in that footer distribute a significant amount of PR?

[edited by: tedster at 5:59 pm (utc) on Aug. 2, 2007]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[tedster]

Footer links to internal pages can distribute their "appropriate share" of the total PR vote. That will be as significant as any other link on the page.

Many times footer navigation just duplicates links that are available im the main navigation, asnd there is some confusion over whether two identical links will vote a "double" share of PR, or if the two links are only counted as one link total. My own guess (admittedly a guess) is that multiple links on the same page only count as one link total for PR calculation.

[soapystar]

has anyone don any tests yet to determine how google determines footer links? If your using css for example and laying out content before links thus header links will still appear at the bottom of the code...does google bother to work out where that bottom code appears for users..if not i guess the keyword stuffers will simply place their footer links at the top of the code but use css to place them at the bottom for the user..or even off-page
;)

[Bewenched]

If your using css for example and laying out content before links thus header links will still appear at the bottom of the code

Exactly! We do that to keep the upper portion of our code cleaner. I wonder if this is why some of our pages have been devalued?

[glengara]

"..navigation footer links pointing to all interior pages."

That would make me a bit nervous, boils down to "perceived intent" though, so it'll probably depend on what other linkage factors you have in play....