how do you remove the footer links?

Question

How do you edit the default footer links that Magento applies? Orders and Returns, Search term?

Answer 1

I think the links you mean are the following folder

\app\design\frontend\default\themeXXXX\

The Order and Return link is in layout/sales.xml

<reference name="footer_links">
   <block type="sales/guest_links" name="return_link"/>
     <action method="addLinkBlock"><blockName>return_link</blockName></action>
</reference>

The Sitemap link you can find here:layout/catalog.xml

<reference name="footer_links">
    <action method="addLink" translate="label title" module="catalog" ifconfig="catalog/seo/site_map"><label>Site Map</label><url helper="catalog/map/getCategoryUrl" /><title>Site Map</title></action>
</reference>

The Search terms link you can find here: layout/catalogsearch.xml

<reference name="footer_links">
    <action method="addLink" translate="label title" module="catalogsearch" ifconfig="catalog/seo/search_terms">
        <label>Search Terms</label>
        <url helper="catalogsearch/getSearchTermUrl" />
        <title>Search Terms</title>
    </action>
    <action method="addLink" translate="label title" module="catalogsearch">
        <label>Advanced Search</label>
        <url helper="catalogsearch/getAdvancedSearchUrl" />
        <title>Advanced Search</title>
    </action>
</reference>

The contacts link in: layout/contacts.xml

<reference name="footer_links">
        <action method="addLink" translate="label title" module="contacts" ifconfig="contacts/contacts/enabled"><label>Contact Us</label><url>contacts</url><title>Contact Us</title><prepare>true</prepare></action>
</reference>

Just comment the ones out you want to remove. If you want to remove all of them and just add your static cms block "footer_links" then you will need to copy this file /app/code/core/Mage/Page/Block/Template/Links.php to your local files and comment the following piece of code out

$this->getLinks();

Answer 2

You are probably looking the footer block. Go to CMS - Static blocks and search "footer". From there you should be able to edit the footer links.