We’ve covered footer and boilerplate content a lot here but Google’s John Mueller brought it up again when answering a question in a Google Hangout this morning on Google+. At the 15:30 mark into the video, John describes that having footer or boilerplate content and links should not lead to a penalty, nor is the content or links in that section penalized, it is more that those blocks are not seen as the primary content on the page by Google.

Here is what he said:

So having links in your footer may not been seen as so important by Google because it is not primary content on the page. The links and content aren’t necessarily penalized but they may not be given as much weight.

Obvious stuff for most of you but good to hear it from Google.

Here is the video embed:

Forum discussion at Google+.