Are footer links at the end of each page still considered to be a valid tactic?

[Tompt]

This is pretty much an opinion question, I was under the impression that footer links had been devalued almost to the point of uselessness, and if they weren't going to be of any real use to the users of the site why bother.

I was speaking to a web developer though whose opinion I do largely trust who remains very pro footer links, and I was wondering what everyone else thought.

Am I being too dismissive, or are footer links on the way out?

[Hondaspeder]

Google won't use the keyword anchor text in those links so much, but will follow them. They're also very user friendly, and are pretty much expected now a days.

[Julich]

From a user experience perspective, I like putting "exit" links in the footer so that when the user reaches the end of the page, he has some relevant links to continue reading content on my websites.

From a SEO perspective, indeed, Google doesn't seem to pass a lot of linkjuice to those links, as long as it identify them as footer links.

[Dan-Petrovic]

Google know's it's in the footer (pretty much always) so it will treat it like a footer link. No big deal, just not as potent as a content area link.

[perfectweb]

I'm not sure footer links necessarily carry much SEo weith anymore, but from a user perspective I definitely find them 100% useful.

If I'm reading a long blog post on SEOMoz for example, the links at the bottom allow me to navigate where I want to go next without having to scroll back to the top of the page.

It is also always the first place I would look to find contact information for a website and also for a TOS/Privacy policy.