Add Breadcrumbs as a Secondary Navigation Aid
Breadcrumbs use a single line of text to show a page’s location in the site hierarchy. They are very helpful both for SEO and enhanced usability:
From SEO perspective, breadcrumbs allow for “reversed” crawling (for example, when a deep page gets a lot of link juice from social voting sites, breadcrumbs help to spread it to higher levels);
From usability point of view, breadcrumbs help users to understand where they are in relation to the rest of the site. They are not destructive as they don’t take much space, so they “are there, only when you need them”.
Good news: you can add breadcrumbs to your blog!
Yoast Breadcrumbs is a WordPress plugin that outputs a fully customizable breadcrumb path. Test it and you’ll love it:
Do you use breadcrumbs? Share your experience!
Ann Smarty
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21 Responses to “Add Breadcrumbs as a Secondary Navigation Aid”
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RT@lorenbaker Add Breadcrumbs as a Secondary Nav. Aid GOOD SEO TIP http://tinyurl.com/dx7wom
Great point! Thanks for the explanation:)
Yes Annie. I do use and its helpful in both the ways(SEO n Usability)
Mercy Livi’s last incredible blog post..Searchcamp 2009 Chennai – Round Up
Hi Ann,
Based on a test that you made some time ago (http://www.searchenginejournal.com/keyword-rich-internal-anchor-text-how-much-is-too-much/8036/) I nofollowed all my breadcrumb links and tried to create an anchor to home into the content. What you think about it? It worked for me.
Ann Smarty Reply:
March 4th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I’d appreciate it if you shared your experience in more detail. What changed after you did that?
Fabio Ricotta Reply:
March 5th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I found that sometime ago using breadcrumbs for SEO are so great, but some months ago I’ve noticed that it looks like the same pattern and Google maybe was not counting those links.
My strategy was to nofollow all the breadcrumb links and insert the anchor+link in the best posts of my blog. It works good because we had improved our rankings for the major keyword.
I did not have any data that I can show, but seems to work. I’ll try to monitor some sites that I did this strategy and I’ll post here.
Rik Weber Reply:
March 4th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I actually tested making the home link within my breadcrumb trail a dofollow keyword and it seemed to work wonders for SEO!
Of course you can’t be too spammy with it, in my case the keyword fit in quite nicely.
Your blog is nice, yet you have incomplete detail of it. Try to add a little crisp on it and a little information. But to sum it up, everything is great. God bless.
I think breadcrumbs are great. Most importantly they force you to think about your website architecture again. You should always be considering whether that works well in usability terms. Sitemap web pages seem to have fallen out of favor, but they were also good for that questioning process.
Barry Welford’s last incredible blog post..BWelford’s Monthly Round-Up For February 2009
I wonder if breadcrumb makes good snippet in case there is a keyword in the article title?
I think breadcrumbs are bad for pagerank distribution within a site (in most situations). I nofollowed the breadcrumb nav on my sites. I still use/like it for usability reasons.
Do-following a keyword (other than using HOME) like Rik Weber mentioned can be seen as too spammy (especially if you have a lot of pages in your site). I prefer to use an image logo with proper keyword in alt text to link back home.
By the way… this site is great… keep up the good work!
Great post about breadcrumbs. Fine way to sum it up, nice work.
Hi Ann,
I am using Breadcrumb NavXT WP Plugin. This plugin is also good.
Fabio Ricotta Reply:
March 6th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I use it too. I really like it.
Gutenberg Communications develops strategic communications to help organizations grow – increase revenue, drive recognition, connect with stakeholders, build market value and create powerful brands that stand out from the crowd. Our values as an agency are rooted in “Customer Delight” as we believe, “customer satisfaction” does not cut it.
Thanks Ann for this nice posting.
Ann – There’s another SEO benefit, in that there will usually also be one additional instance of the keyword on the page (the current page name) at the end of the breadcrumb trail.
Ian Macfarlane’s last incredible blog post..Ask.com also supporting the new canonical tag
I like the idea of breadcrumbs as well from a Social Media Standpoint. Does anyone believe people are feeling more “lonely” on traditional sites. They want to know what it is all about without spending the time perusing.
“C’mon I have 200 Twitter DM’s to read to find out the MLM program I am going to join this week” I hope sarcasm is not lost in the comment.
And I agree with Dorian. Keep up the great work on this column.
Based on a test that you made some time ago (http://www.searchenginejournal.com/keyword-rich-internal-anchor-text-how-much-is-too-much/8036/) I nofollowed all my breadcrumb links and tried to create an anchor to home into the content. What you think about it? It worked for me.
It helps to help better navigation on my Blog.
I loved your tips. I’ll put into practice.
Congratulations!
Thanks.