Site wide internal links in footer

[Macaper]

I have had a long discussion with a client and their external SEO partner about their current footer. They have added all their product categories, both main and sub, to the footer.

From a pure SEO perspective is it still advisable, after all the pandas and penguines, to stay away from keyword important site wide footer linking to internal pages?

As the links will become a repeatable element and also containing the most important keywords, isn't the links actually hurting more than helping?

With 5000 index pages, it will risk "marking" the most important keywords as repeatable, lowering ranking, instead of increasing as their external part say.

[ChiragNirmal]

I added important categories to the footer of our website just 2 weeks back and started seeing new traffic instantly. I think you should keep footer links.

[GrowthHackingGooglesIndex]

If they are repeating keywords in all those links there is potential harm and from a structural stand point this type of linking leaks theme all over the place.  If they were my client I would be pushing to at least remove sub cats.

[Macaper]

My recommendation was just that. Take away all excessive linking with subcagegories and even primary categories and instead add more generic, but traffic hub important footer links. This is how I "always" recommend to clients, but since all of the panda updates and the external SEO partner (who is responsible for the links in the first place) protested, I just wanted to get some pro input from all of the SEO pros here at moz