Are footer links important?

[Mivito]

We currently display a list of links in the footer of our site to help boost SEO. They were put in place years ago and in a recent discuss with our UX team they requested we remove them from the site. Do footer links have any value? Or is this an old dated practice that no longer works? If we remove the footer links should we expect to see if have an impact on our SEO traffic?

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

Are the footer links internal links to other pages on your own site, or external links to other websites in your network?  If they're internal, there's nothing wrong it.  If they're external, you are basically passing almost no value to those other sites.  They may even potentially be seen as spammy links.

1. Do footer links have any value?  Very little value.  It's best to avoid trying to get a bunch of footer links.
2. Is this an old dated practice that no longer works?  Correct.  Footer links is an old and dated practice.
3. If we remove the footer links should we expect to see if have an impact on our SEO traffic?  You shouldn't expect a drop in SEO traffic from getting rid of a footer link.

[vmialik]

Michael, Philip is on the dot mass footer linking was an SEO trick of the past that does not benefit much in terms of an SEO boost. If its messy clean it up. Leave it ONLY if it makes sense from a user experience, and so optimize for a real human person as he would browsing the lower part of your site.

Hope this helps