Question

I’ve read in several places that there’s no need to use <nav> inside <footer> when all you’re linking to is copyright, terms and conditions, etc.

However, a site I’m working on has these links in the footer: News, Careers, Privacy. Obviously Privacy fits the above description for not using <nav>. But News and Careers – although they’re obviously not being given as much weight as items in the main nav at the top – are significant areas of content, which aren’t linked to from elsewhere. Would these justify the use of <nav>?

My guess is yes, but I’m a HTML5 newbie, so I thought I’d ask for a second opinion!

Answer 1

As the W3C specification states

Not all groups of links on a page need to be in a <nav> element — the
element is primarily intended for sections that consist of major
navigation blocks. In particular, it is common for footers to have a
short list of links to various pages of a site, such as the terms of
service, the home page, and a copyright page. The footer element alone
is sufficient for such cases; while a <nav> element can be used in such
cases, it is usually unnecessary.

Note the very last sentence – even if it’s not recommended you can use the <nav> element even for the TOS, Privacy etc.

In your case, when you have other significant navigation elements(Careers, News), I think it’s totally valid and semantically correct to use the <nav> element in your <footer>