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Search engine giant Google has recently introduced a new update to its search engine results pages (SERPs) that's causing quite a stir, affectionately called "Google breadcrumbs!"
What are Google Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumb navigation is often used on websites to help visitors know where they are in the overall site structure. For example, a single page on a recipe site might the navigation showing "Homepage > Baking Recipes > Chocolate Cake" to show that the visitor is on a page for a chocolate cake recipe, within the baking category.
The different parts of the breadcrumb navigation are often clickable, allowing the visitor to quickly visit the different areas of the site. In the above example, clicking "Baking Recipes" would take the visitor to a category page displaying all the baking recipes.
The breadcrumbs are the arrows (>) between the sections.
Why Are They Called Breadcrumbs?
The name comes from the concept that this kind of navigation shows the visitor's "trail" through the site.
Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs is a reference to the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale Hansel and Gretel.
How To Spot The New Navigation on Google Search Results
The new breadcrumb navigation can be spotted on the last line of each search result (where it is included) in small green text. This is the line that normally displays the URL of the page that the search result links to.
The breadcrumb navigation can be identified by the presence of breadcrumb arrows (>) in the green text. Instead of just displaying the URL, Google now displays the breadcrumb navigation in this format: Homepage > Category > Page
Each of these words (in the above case "homepage," "category" and "page") link to their respective parts of the site. The main link in the listing will still click through in the same way as before.
So now instead of just one link, Google includes three or more links to different parts of a website.
Why Is This Good For Website Owners?
Listings that include the breadcrumb navigation benefit site owners by increasing the number of opportunities for searchers to click. These additional links give greater choice to the searcher and eases their navigation through the site they click to.
Ease of navigation creates a positive experience and when visitors have a positive experience on a website, their trust in the website owner increases. This is particularly important for e-commerce websites, where breadcrumb navigation is also particularly useful.
Additionally, a shopper may search for a particular product name and be shown breadcrumb navigation that allows them to view the product's category, which shows other similar products. One of these products might be more suitable for the shopper, causing them to buy when they wouldn't have if they had just landed on the original product page.
How To Get Google To Include Breadcrumbs In Your Listings
You might wonder where Google gets its data for the breadcrumb navigation on its search engine results pages. It's just a case of it recognizing standard breadcrumb navigation on your website.
Standard breadcrumb navigation is in this format:
Homepage > Category Page > Individual Page
You can add additional categories (or "steps") if required.
If you use WordPress, a good plugin for automatically adding the correctly-formatted navigation to your blog is Breadcrumb NavXT, which can be downloaded from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/
If your site is hand-coded or uses another platform, all you need to do is ensure your breadcrumb navigation is in the standard format above and in a consistent place on all pages on your site.
