Breadcrumbs
What are breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs are a navigation trail near the top of a page that shows the path from the homepage to the current page, for example Home > Garden > Houseplants > Snake plant. Each step links to that level of the site. They help visitors see where they are and give search engines extra internal links and structure.
Breadcrumbs work best on sites with a clear hierarchy, such as shops, documentation and large blogs, where a visitor arriving from search may land several levels deep. They should mirror your site architecture and the folders in your URLs where possible, so the structure tells one consistent story.
You can mark breadcrumbs up with BreadcrumbList structured data so Google understands the trail. Google has used breadcrumbs in place of the raw URL in desktop results; in January 2025 it simplified mobile results to show only the site’s domain, not the breadcrumb path.
Why breadcrumbs matter for SEO
Breadcrumbs add relevant internal links up the hierarchy on every page, which helps crawlers and spreads link signals to category pages.
They make large sites, especially shops and documentation, easier to navigate, which helps visitors who land deep in the site from search.
How to add breadcrumbs
- Reflect your real site hierarchy, not the path the visitor happened to take.
- Make each step except the current page a link.
- Place the trail near the top of the main content.
- Add BreadcrumbList structured data in JSON-LD and test it with the Rich Results Test.
Breadcrumbs example
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "BreadcrumbList",
"itemListElement": [
{ "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Garden", "item": "https://example.com/garden/" },
{ "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Houseplants", "item": "https://example.com/garden/houseplants/" },
{ "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Snake plant" }
]
}
</script>Breadcrumbs FAQ
Do breadcrumbs help SEO?
Yes, indirectly. They add useful internal links, clarify site structure and help users navigate. Breadcrumb markup can also be shown in desktop search results.
Why don’t my breadcrumbs show in Google on mobile?
Since January 2025, Google’s mobile results show only the site’s domain in the URL line, not the breadcrumb path. Breadcrumbs can still appear on desktop, and they still help users and crawlers on your site.
Does the last breadcrumb need a link?
No. The current page is usually shown as plain text. In BreadcrumbList markup the last item can omit the item URL.
Related SEO terms
Internal links are links from one page on your site to another. They help visitors navigate, help crawlers find pages and spread link authority.
Site architecture is how a website’s pages are organised and linked together, which shapes how people and search engines find and value them.
Structured data is code in a standard format that describes a page’s content to search engines, making it eligible for rich results.
Schema markup is structured data that uses the schema.org vocabulary to describe things on a page, such as products, articles and businesses.
A URL slug is the last part of a URL that names a specific page, such as /blue-running-shoes. Short, readable slugs help users and search engines.