HTML5 semantic elements: share/like buttons in footer

Question

The footer element is appropriate for such links.

It’s a pretty easy decision, as such links are clearly not part of a section’s main content, so there is only footer or header left as possible candidates. And here the definition of footer seems to come closer (emphasis mine):

[…] typically contains information about its section such as who wrote it, links to related documents, copyright data, and the like.

Share/like links

When the share/like links are for sharing/liking the article (e.g. in case of a blog post), use the footer of the article section.

When the share/like links are for sharing/liking the whole website, use the footer of the body sectioning root.

<body>
  <article>
    <footer><!-- for links applying to this article --></footer>
  </article>
  <footer><!-- for links applying to the whole page resp. site --></footer>
</body>

Profile links

In case where the author of the article is a different person than the author of the page/website, place the profile links accordingly.

If the linked profile offers a way to contact you, you might use an address element in addition.

<footer>
  <address><a>…</a></address>
</footer>

You may want to use the author resp. publisher link type.