How to fix landmark contentinfo is top level on BigCommerce

Steps for BigCommerce

1. In your BigCommerce admin, go to Storefront → My Themes → click 'Advanced' → 'Edit Theme Files' for your active theme (Stencil).
2. Open 'templates/layout/base.html' (the master layout file).
3. Find the <footer> tag. Check whether it is inside a <main> element or any other landmark. In a correctly structured Stencil theme, <footer> should appear after </main>.
4. If the <footer> is nested inside <main> or another landmark, cut the entire footer block and paste it after the </main> closing tag, as a direct child of <body>.
5. Save and push the theme, then verify with the axe DevTools extension in your browser.

What is landmark contentinfo is top level?

Every webpage typically has a footer that contains things like copyright notices, contact links, and legal disclaimers. In HTML, the `<footer>` tag (or any element with `role="contentinfo"`) is a special navigation landmark that screen readers use to help users jump directly to site-wide footer content. The WCAG rule `landmark-contentinfo-is-top-level` means that this footer landmark must sit at the top level of the page — a direct child of `<body>` — rather than being wrapped inside another landmark element like `<main>`, `<header>`, `<section>`, or `<article>`. When your footer is nested inside another landmark, screen readers get confused about the page's structure and may not correctly announce or navigate to the footer.

Screen reader users — including many people with visual impairments or motor disabilities — rely on landmark regions to skip around a page efficiently, much like sighted users scan headings visually. When your `contentinfo` (footer) landmark is buried inside another landmark, assistive technologies either skip it or mis-announce it, making your site harder or impossible to navigate for these users. This is a WCAG 2.1 failure (Success Criterion 1.3.6 / best practice under 4.1.2), meaning your store may face legal accessibility risk under laws like the ADA (USA), EAA (EU), or AODA (Canada). Fixing it also signals high HTML quality to search engines, which increasingly factor accessibility into crawl quality, and avoids potential legal complaints or demand letters that are increasingly common against ecommerce stores.

See the complete Landmark contentinfo is top level guide for every platform and the full background.