The Footer Tag

The footer tag has been introduced in HTML5 for producing better page structure:
The Code: <footer></footer>

Is like a closing statement for a web page or a section which can contain information about the author, copyright information, etc.

Common Uses

Copyright information
Author details and or contact info
Navigation links (ex. “Back to top”)
Site map of related documents
Secondary navigation

Where to Use the Footer

At the bottom of an entire webpage
Inside articles, sections, or other containers to close out that part of the web page.

Rules:

You can nest divisions and paragraphs inside footers
Do not nest footers inside footers!

Examples
Different ways to use the footer element:

<body>
<h1>Page title</h1>
<article>
 <h2>article title</h2>
 <video>
  <p><a href="*.ogv">Download video</A>.</p>
 </video>
  <footer> <!-- footer for article -->
  <p>Published : date and time</p>
 </footer>
</article>

<section>
 <h2>section title</h2>
 <p>section information</p>
 <p>section information</p>
 <footer> <!-- footer for section -->
  <p>Last Modified: date</p>
 </footer>
</section>

<footer> <!-- site wide footer -->
 <nav>
  <p><a href="/credits.html">Credits</A>
     <a href="/tos.html">Terms of Service</A>
     <a href="/index.html">Blog Index</A></p>
 </nav>
 <p>© 2009 Gordon Freeman Contact at: br@549.if</p>
</footer>
</body>

New Semantic Elements and Beginners

The new tags used as shown below make the body code of a basic HTML5 document more organized.

Semantic Structure should be used instead of using class customized divisions .

<body>
<header></header> NEW
<nav></nav> NEW
<main></main> Not NEW, but Essential.
<footer></footer> NEW
</body>

NOTE: Use of the new tags article, section, header, footer, hgroup, nav and aside make your pages more machine-readable for the disabled and aid AI in producing more accurate content.