Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are a site navigation element that shows users their current location within a website's hierarchy. Search engines use breadcrumb schema to display structured breadcrumb trails in search results.
Reviewed by Alexander Yarovenko · Updated: 2026-09-22
What are Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs are a secondary navigation system that shows users their location within a website's hierarchy, typically displayed near the top of the page. They look like: Home → Category → Subcategory → Current Page. They are named after the fairy tale trail of breadcrumbs left to find the way home.
Types of Breadcrumbs
- Hierarchy-based (most common) — shows the page's position in the site structure: Home → Blog → SEO → Keyword Research
- History-based — shows pages visited in the current session (like browser back buttons; rarely used in SEO)
- Attribute-based — shows filters applied (common in e-commerce): Home → Shoes → Running → Men's → Red
Breadcrumbs in SEO
- Improved crawlability — breadcrumbs create additional internal links that help Googlebot navigate site structure
- SERP display — Google shows breadcrumbs instead of the raw URL in search results when BreadcrumbList schema is implemented
- User experience — helps users understand where they are and navigate to parent categories
- Internal linking — each breadcrumb link passes PageRank to parent pages
BreadcrumbList Schema Implementation
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "BreadcrumbList",
"itemListElement": [
{"@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://example.com/"},
{"@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Blog", "item": "https://example.com/blog/"},
{"@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "SEO", "item": "https://example.com/blog/seo/"}
]
}
</script>How Breadcrumbs Appear in SERPs
Instead of showing https://example.com/blog/seo/keyword-research/, Google shows: example.com › blog › seo › keyword-research. This is cleaner, more readable, and can improve click-through rates.
Editorial decision
Breadcrumbs should reflect a useful hierarchy and link to real parent pages.
Validation
Check visible trail, crawlable links, canonical URLs and BreadcrumbList markup on representative live pages and record the result.