diff --git a/doc/_templates/pandas_footer.html b/doc/_templates/pandas_footer.html
deleted file mode 100644
index 6d8caa4d6c741..0000000000000
--- a/doc/_templates/pandas_footer.html
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-<p class="copyright">
-    &copy {{copyright}} pandas via <a href="https://numfocus.org">NumFOCUS, Inc.</a> Hosted by <a href="https://www.ovhcloud.com">OVHcloud</a>.
-</p>
diff --git a/doc/source/conf.py b/doc/source/conf.py
index f222a228531ff..03e8127818f94 100644
--- a/doc/source/conf.py
+++ b/doc/source/conf.py
@@ -242,7 +242,7 @@
 
 html_theme_options = {
     "external_links": [],
-    "footer_start": ["pandas_footer", "sphinx-version"],
+    "footer_start": ["copyright"],
     "github_url": "https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas",
     "analytics": {
         "plausible_analytics_domain": "pandas.pydata.org",
diff --git a/pandas/core/strings/accessor.py b/pandas/core/strings/accessor.py
index 21e6e2efbe778..7cc88f6705066 100644
--- a/pandas/core/strings/accessor.py
+++ b/pandas/core/strings/accessor.py
@@ -527,6 +527,12 @@ def cat(
             alignment, use `.values` on any Series/Index/DataFrame in `others`.
 
         Returns
+        -------
+        When concatenating with a Series or Index, pandas aligns on index labels
+        by default. This can produce NaN values if the indices do not match.
+        To get element-wise concatenation (the behavior before v0.23),
+        convert the object to numpy arrays with ``.values`` or ``.to_numpy()``.
+
         -------
         str, Series or Index
             If `others` is None, `str` is returned, otherwise a `Series/Index`
@@ -613,6 +619,23 @@ def cat(
         4    -e
         2    -c
         dtype: str
+        Examples with Index
+        -------------------
+        >>> idx = pd.Index(["a", "b", "c"])
+        >>> ser = pd.Series(["x", "y", "z"])
+
+        # Default alignment behavior (indices match here)
+        >>> idx.str.cat(ser, join="left")
+        Index(['ax', 'by', 'cz'], dtype='object')
+
+        # If indices do not match, result may contain NaN
+        >>> ser2 = pd.Series(["x", "y", "z"], index=[10, 11, 12])
+        >>> idx.str.cat(ser2, join="left")
+        Index([nan, nan, nan], dtype='object')
+
+        # Element-wise concatenation (old behavior) using .values
+        >>> idx.str.cat(ser.values)
+        Index(['ax', 'by', 'cz'], dtype='object')
 
         For more examples, see :ref:`here <text.concatenate>`.
         """