SEO of Breadcrumbs Navigation
Breadcrumbs are a conventional secondary navigation system that shows a page’s location in the website hierarchy by using a single line of text, usually right above the main heading of the page.
The main benefit of breadcrumbs is that they help users understand where they are in the site in a very clear and simple way. Sometimes navigational click paths are displayed, allowing the user to click back to the previously visited pages (the Hansel & Gretel way), but usability benefits are greater when breadcrumbs show categories that represent the logical structure of the site.
Normally the current page isn’t shown as a clickable link, while the other links provide a convenient way to navigate to higher levels in the site hierarchy.
Breadcrumbs in E-commerce
Breadcrumbs are used in e-commerce websites not only to show categories, but also to address checkout abandonment. Checkout stages in breadcrumbs can show the different parts of the process and reassure users about the distance from the completion of the transaction.
E-commerce sites and websites that use breadcrumbs to offer users a supplemental navigation system, could see their pages on Google SERPs shown in a new way: The green URL can be replaced by clickable breadcrumbs, as for the Amazon result in the image below.
Analyzing Amazon from a web design perspective can teach a lot about usability and conversion optimization. If you click on the result featuring breadcrumbs, the page surprisingly will not show this secondary navigational option, probably as a result of A/B testing on landing pages.
My guess is that Google’s algorithm is taking into account that at a higher level breadcrumbs are shown.
Why is Google showing breadcrumbs instead of URLs?
Sometimes URLs, let’s admit it, aren’t very communicative, especially when a lot of obscure parameters are displayed, along with descriptive folder names as… “products”. Showing the precise location of the page in the website can help the user identify the content of the page, and change destination in case user’s intent would be matched better by a page with more general information.
SEO can be applied to breadcrumbs by optimizing anchor text for usability and better internal linking. Some sites use Page Titles, but Categories should be named with the same terms used in other navigational menus and bars used in the websites.
The “Home” link can also be optimized by using a relevant keyword, but remember that overoptimizing it could cancel the beneficial effects of breadcrumbs on usability.
Google’s adoption of breadcrumbs in snippets will reinforce users’ familiarity with this navigation system that is already considered as “conventional”.
Complying with web design usability conventions, especially for e-commerce websites, will ensure that users will always feel in control on your website, and provide internal linking SEO benefits.
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