Is the Blog Sidebar Slowly Moving to the Blog’s Footer?
August 22nd, 2007
There have been many movements in the blogosphere over the past year, but one that I haven’t fully ever understood is the recent transition blog sidebars have been making to the footer of the blog.
I originally noticed this probably 6-8 months ago when a few well made WordPress themes were released and started making their way around the blogosphere. At the time, I didn’t think much of it because they were fairly uncommon and they weren’t being used by full time bloggers. Since then, I’ve noticed an explosion in this type of theme’s popularity. The first full time blogger’s site I noticed it as was Ryan and Ashley’s redesign at CyberNet News , where they added a new custom made theme using various sidebar functions in the footer. Next Darren at ProBlogger released a custom theme, and today even John Chow has started using a custom theme that has various sidebar functions moved to the footer of the blog. I don’t believe any of the 3 had any modules/widgets in their footer’s prior to the site redesigns, so I can’t help but wonder what made them switch to this type of design.
What are the advantages to making this switch? The first and most obvious advantage to this type of redesign would have to be the space this makes available in your sidebar for advertising and affiliate links, which can help you make more money online with your website. The other advantage is that the footer is usually the last part of the page to load, so any hangups with your MyBlogLog widget or slow loading modules would be less noticeable by a reader when placed in the footer.
What are the disadvantages? Placing things in your blog’s footer makes them less likely to be seen. This means you would ideally want to place only things that aren’t essential to your blog’s success, such as your blog categories/archives, recent posts/comments, or extra fluff that is just for fun (like the MyBlogLog widget and Alexa widget). I am also not a big fan of the look it gives the blog, but I suppose it will grow on me as I get more used to it.
Overall, I can see reasons for using and not using this type of theme, but I just found it curious that so many full time bloggers have made the switch to this type of theme all around the same time.
What are some of the advantages/disadvantages I have missed?
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No, Gravatar does not have an affiliate program. 
Does Gravator have an affilitate program? 
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Actually when people comment on our site they inevitably see the footer (or at least a little bit of it). Same with John Chow’s…if you scroll down to leave a comment you’ll notice that the footer is popping out at you. If you have a long sidebar, however, this will probably not be the case.
Good point, Ryan. My main motivation to do this soon at ShanKri-la is to avoid the hangups caused by the widgets like MBL, BlogCatalog, etc. It just gives bad vibes when I see a website load ever so slowly especially when you are on a T1 or a faster connection.
With my design knowledge though, I don’t think it’s gonna look its best but atleast the page will load faster.
I have a few items in my footer that would normally be put into your sidebar. I like having it in the footer because it keeps the sidebar clean, too many bloggers have huge sidebars and they look really ugly. Having some of that in the footer keeps everything nice and clean.
I’ve been watching this for a while as well wondering what the story was. I can see the advantages of putting stuff like potentially slow loading widgets down there but I’m not convinced about its visibility even to commenters. I can also see the benefits in terms of a cleaner layout. But just a thought – At the point where’s something isn’t important enough to merit proximity to the article content, do we really need it?
I’ve gone back and forth on this one. The main thing that always brought me back to “no, don’t do it” is the thought of someone not seeing something way down there. Of course, the same thing could be said for having to scroll down to see something below the fold in one’s sidebar, but the footer is, well, the footer – the most extreme part of being missed. The fact that the A-listers you mentioned are doing it may make it more acceptable and thus encourage bloggers to scroll down anyway, but until then, I’m sticking with 3-column themes.
From my point of view, things that aren’t totally useless, like MBL, Links to other blogs and maybe an excerpt of your About page or anything else look way more professional in the footer than in the sidebar.
I guess designers have analyzed the problem differently, and in JC case, he did analyze it for sure. When you come to think of it, placing “not so useful” widgets from the sidebar to the footer was a smart move, most of his readers attention is going to be directed to the ads, because that was actually his idea.
I guess that what I’m actually trying to say is that by moving some useless things from the sidebar to the footer, you’ll not only be left with a cleaner sidebar, but now your visitors attention will be focused mostly on what’s in the sidebar ( probably ads ) .
Ryan – I guess that is something I didn’t consider. Now that I think about it, the sites mentioned above all seem to be two column themes (which have long sidebars usually). I think that is definitely an advantage.
K – Noooo, I love your theme!
Actually, this post and the comments got me thinking a little more about this and making a switch, or just moving some of this stuff to the footer on my existing theme (which I’ve put a lot of time into making). I’m still not decided, but before this post I wasn’t even considering it.
Michael – Yes, I’ve noticed several cluttered sidebars when browsing the blogosphere. I think if done right, cluttered can be avoided without moving stuff to the blog footer, but some design knowledge is required to do that. These pre-made WordPress themes seem to help those with minimal design knowledge to keep the clutter in the footer.
Robert – I think you bring up a great point, but you could apply the fluff label to Recent Comments, or most of the stuff on sites. It would depend a lot on the theme whether or not you could see the footer when leaving a comment.
Mark – You would be surprised how little is viewed “below the fold” by anyone that isn’t leaving a comment.
Cristian – Good point! Who can argue with John Chow and his results?
I would prefer using the footer for widgets for the reason that they might cause hangups while loading. But I would recommend that the recent posts/comments should be in the sidebar if the space is available, because they are essential for new visitors to the blog
Kyle.. no worries. I am keeping this theme for a while even if I feel like Smeagol from the Lord of the Rings when I see a clean new white based theme.. ‘I needs it. I wants it.’
I am just thinking about using the footer for slow loading widgets!