Inventory the footer variants
Inspect representative pages rather than assuming the whole site shares one footer. Include a service page, article, landing page and both language editions. Record each label, destination, group and template owner. A legacy landing page may still use a separate footer even when the main website has been updated.
Separate actual links from plain text and controls that expand a group. Capture the mobile version as well as desktop. The working inventory should identify where each variant appears, so an editor can distinguish one incorrect destination from a shared template problem affecting many pages.
State the reason each destination belongs there
Assign a user purpose to every link: finding contact details, reviewing a policy, reaching support or exploring a major service area. W3C describes page footers as a place for sitewide information. That does not mean every article or service variation belongs in this repeated region.
Ask the responsible owner about policy and account-related links before removing them. A low click count alone does not prove that a destination is unnecessary, particularly when it serves an occasional but important task. Record unknown purposes for review instead of deleting them during a cosmetic cleanup.
Choose retain, update, relocate or remove
Retain current destinations that serve a clear repeated need. Update a stale URL when the same resource has moved. Relocate a narrow topical guide to a relevant hub or article if that gives it a more useful context. Remove an obsolete link only after confirming that its task no longer needs that route.
For any relocation, check whether the footer was the only internal route to a useful page. Establish a suitable alternative before removing it. Avoid adding long keyword lists simply to multiply repeated links. Google’s guidance gives no universal ideal link count; relevance and the actual reader task should drive this editorial decision.
Apply the decisions to a hypothetical footer
Imagine a fictional agency footer with current contact and privacy links, an expired event registration link and six highly specific troubleshooting guides. Keep the current utility destinations. Ask the event owner whether an archive is still useful before deciding what should happen to the expired link.
If the six guides remain useful, place them within a relevant help hub and verify that the hub is reachable. Then decide whether the footer needs a single route to that hub. This is an illustrative information-design choice, not evidence that fewer footer links improve rankings or that a particular site may remove policy information.
Verify the shared change across page types
After an authorized edit, check representative pages from every affected template and language. Open each changed destination and verify the final content, not only its status code. Test collapsed mobile groups and keyboard access. A destination that works on desktop may still be unreachable inside a broken mobile control.
Use suitable page-region markup so assistive technologies can identify the footer and navigation where applicable. Save the inventory, ownership decisions, replacement routes and verification results in the website-audit action list. Keep a rollback copy of the shared template. This focused review establishes useful navigation; it is not a complete accessibility assessment or a search-performance guarantee.