

Ask HN: What is With The Glorified Footer? - profgubler

I really like these new footers that I see on sites everywhere like wsj.com or seomoz.org. http://bit.ly/14jgKF (Screenshot). I see them all over the place now.<p>I think they are easy to use, and I have even seen people include a contact form in one. Are there any studies on the usability of these footers, such as a Jakob Nielsen study or any other study? Also what are they called?<p>Do any of you have these on your site currently, and how might they have helped your site?<p>I also wanted to know if these are mainly for SEO, such as to help increase indexing on large sites. Or are there other more important reasons?
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noodle
they are also usability improvements. when you're done reading an article,
you're at the bottom of the page. for the average user, having a nice set of
options right in front of your face is more convenient than having to click a
"to the top" button, or scroll back up, or whatever.

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justinchen
It's something you can pretty easily test by tracking the clicks from the
footer links or by using one of the services that tracks user mouse behavior.
Some people's reasons for not hitting the bottom: <http://pickfu.com/PGDFOA>

