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Google Rolls Out Breadcrumb Display in SERPs

Breadcrumbs in Search Results Provide Context

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By · December 23, 2009 · 66 Comments

Update: Google announced today that it will now be rolling out the use of breadcrumbs in seach results on a global basis. They will only be used in place of some URLs – mainly the ones that don’t give the added context of a link the way that the breadcrumbs do. Google says:

Some web addresses help you understand the structure of the site and how the specific page fits into the site hierarchy. For example, consider a search for the biography of Vint Cerf (Google’s Internet Evangelist). The URL for one result, "www.google.com/corporate/execs.html," shows that the page is located in a page about "execs," under "corporate," which is on the "google.com" site. This can provide valuable context when deciding whether to click on the result.

Often, however, URLs are too long, too short, or too obscure to add useful information.

That’s where the breadcrumbs come in. Google says the feature should be available globally within the next few days.

Original Article: Google appears to be testing breadcrumbs in some search results, at least in some areas. If you are unfamiliar with the term breadcrumbs, it refers to the hierarchical display commonly used in site navigation. For example: Home Page>Product Page>Product A Page.

Do you utilize breadcrumbs on your site? Comment here.

Several bloggers have noticed Google displaying these types of breadcrumbs in various places in seemingly random results to some queries. For example, Rob Hammond provides the following screen shot:

Breadcrumbs in Google Search Results

Leo Fogarty provides another, which shows the breadcrumbs displayed in a different position within the search result:

Breadcrumbs in Google Search Results

Google’s use of breadcrumbs appears to only be a test, and a limited one at that. Google has talked repeatedly about sites having good site architecture in the past. This allows Google to more easily and quickly crawl sites.

Bing acknowledges this too. Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center recently said, "You can have great content and a plethora of high quality inbound links from authority sites, but if your site’s structure is flawed or broken, then it will still not achieve the optimal page rank you desire from search engines."

Here are some tips from both Google and Bing regarding site architecture issues. In addition, Google recently provided this related information on getting your site crawled faster.

If Google begins incorporating the breadcrumbs display as in the above tests, on a mainstream level, that will be all the more reason to clean your site architecture up, at least in the navigation area. Site architecture certainly goes beyond this, but it is a key part of usability anyway.

Have you seen breadcrumbs show up in Google results? What do you think about the idea? Share your thoughts.

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There are 66 Comments. Add Yours.

  1. That’s interesting, there seems to be a lot of testing and things going on with Google right now. I think they are trying to reap up and find a way they can be better than Bing or the possible Yahoo/Bing merger.

  2. I really don’t see the point of it.

    Seems redundant, as the url is provided anyway, which tells the searcher all that information.

    So, if http://www.cdadc.com/ds/downsyndrometreatments.htm is the url, what benefit is then reiterating the info as http://www.cdadc.com> down syndrome > treatments ?

    I guess another question is how do they work out the bread crumb names?

    How do you go from the France car hire example above, that contains no subdirectory, to having a breadcrumb that misleads you into thinking there is one?

    This is very confusing stuff, and may be another consideration for web masters in naming and locating a web page though. BUT,

    Honestly though, we would need guidelines on how Google creates such bread crumbs, before we could confidently start incorporating the idea into the web site seo. Assuming there is some advantage to doing so.

    • As to why, I’m guessing Google feels the breadcrumbs are more informative for readers than the url. The first screenshot shows they replaced url with breadcrumbs and it is more readable.

      • That’s a good point – to the average surfer they dont need or want to know about page extensions.

        So having
        Sitename > category > page

        is much better than displaying

        http://www.somewher.c/somethings/thispage.asp

        I hoping that Google is clever enough to make a breadcrumb for that type of link. Split out the / and lose the extension.

    • If the bread crumbs are displayed it makes it a lot easier for the reader to actually read it.

  3. Even if it does not have apparent benefits for the user, it is a big push to webmasters to spruce up their site architecture and get their house in order!

  4. It’s nice to provide such useful information that Google is testing breadcrumb in SERPS. If Google implements it in the future, it encourages webmaster to build websites in clear navigation. Because it is still often to got lost when browsing websites.

  5. Some posters seem to think that Google is creating the breadcrumbs, rather than using the breadcrumbs it finds on the websites it crawls.

  6. Actually I didn’t realize this until you tell the people. Even though I always using search engine but I am not alert with the result. Good information.

  7. The people who are saying the breadcrumbs are pointless are completely _missing_ the point.

    Just because a site is organised hierarchically from a navigation standpoint doesn’t mean the pages are stored in a directory structure reflecting that hierarchy!

    And as for Google finding the breadcrumbs lol. I think you’ll find Google can easily create them whether the site shows breadcrumbs or not.

    I think this is a great feature and no.

  8. SE is evolving, that is great news.

  9. It would also be great if a standard for breadcrumbs is developed to make things easier for search engines, like through a rel attribute or even by enclosing it in some specific div.

  10. Wow… that looks so cool from Google. I think Google might be picking that some way from the website, or based on the site map file created and probably based on the file names like default.htm vs. page1.htm (lying in same folder hierarchy).

    This will be good for the readers – gives them better hierarchy in the results, but will it impact the SEO? I dont think so. Its just that – a site with better folder structure and a better management might get indexed faster.

  11. Always on top of things, Google is always one step in front of the competition, I have seen the breadcrumbs and I like it, it is a very nice addition to the search results.

  12. I love bread crumbs. It’s a great way to improve the UX. But be careful not to draw too much attention to them, or they may reduce conversion rates, since it can cause people to click around too much on your site and get off the green path.

    • i think its a good idea, as others have said great for SEO and consumers too.

  13. Would be interesting to see if Google attempts to breadcrumb dynamic URLs like:

    …index.php?fArticleId=5100search-all.php?category=102&location=&submit=Search224

  14. That’s a good thing for customers and seos! Nice

  15. I can live without it. Displaying the breadcrumb will not influence my decision to click or not click. It just slows scrolling the page.

    • Paul
      Reply

      Search engines including even Goggle, seam to realize breadcrums are nothing less then an essential part of the www. Example, Verizon outsourced hardcover lists ” DMV ” in Pennsylvania, only under ” L ” for license services NO ONE But NO ONE would look under the “L” section in the yellow pages. Ps- By the way there is no DMV bullet, xref etc. Answer: BREADCRUMBS

  16. I can’t imagine how that could help me in Google search. To be honest, not impressed much!

  17. i studied about breadcrumbs importance in seo 2 years back. but i was unable to find any proof that time. and now it seems to be useful. anyway excellent

  18. i think this is good movent from google. it make us easy to understand the site structure (map).

  19. Wonder how this will affect some of the blogs out there?

  20. Google never seems to sit still. Always making it harder to achieve SEO.

  21. It’s always good to know what google are working with – although this is one of the areas that needs to be looked into for finding a technical solution that is workable.

    And the maybe Google decides not to use the feature afterall :-)

  22. Great to know this, and pleasing to hear because all our clients automatically have a well structured shop with us, and the “crumbtrail” is automated for them, with structured URLs… Lets hope this will help boost them further up the rankings with no extra work involved ;)

  23. Google will be making a lot of changes/improvements to better compete with yahoo/bing.

  24. Personally, I think this would make search results more effective. Sometimes, even Google, displays a result, but the page you are taken too does not reflect the actual result shown. Showing the site architecture should make search more friendly for real estate and other search terms.

  25. i think this is good movent from google. it make us easy to understand the site structure (map).

    http://www.3rbu.com

  26. I liked the breadcrumbs as I would search for say “24 hour fitness” and instead of searching around to find where the hell they put the “find me your locations” page, the breadcrumb had a link for “locations”, which took me right to where I wanted to go.

    Why are the breadcrumbs disappearing tho when it’s quite obvious that I use them a lot when I see them. Shouldn’t Google give the users the choice to use them or not, or did they take it away and make it option that I’m not aware of?

  27. I think it actually throws up more relevant results and if it encourages site owners to have clear navigation structure then that’s a good thing for the user.

  28. I think when you get a lot of pages on your site it becomes more important to use bread crumbs. Before we lambast google for this idea, we should see if it becomes a handy feature. One of the things I like about Google si that they are always experimenting and testing.

  29. I was using Breadcrumb on one of my site for sometimes, but I never thought that Google would have a test about it for websites’ architecture pages. I’ll put more consideration about it to improve my websites performance. Thanks for the tips!

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