In the mega busy world of search engine optimization, breadcrumbs are currently receiving a lot of notoriety as being the new ranking factor that allows websites to gain more online traffic. Here is everything you need to know about breadcrumbs in Google SEO.

What are Breadcrumbs?

To those new to Breadcrumbs, they are a type of search engine navigation structure which informs an online visitor about the main webpage and its various sub-categories available for browsing. Breadcrumbs are essentially a group of links which is also referred to as a Breadcrumb Trail. These links are usually placed below the main heading of any webpage that gets ranked on Google and direct online visitors to respective pages of a website. These pages are known as the categories and sub-categories where visitors would find a lot of other information such as a website’s products, services, customer service, contact information, price list, and many more.

Types of Breadcrumbs

In the past, people had to navigate through entire websites before being able to buy a product or a service. Breadcrumbs make life easier for those navigating the web as they automatically link people to specific webpages without having to navigate a website. Currently there are three types of breadcrumbs being utilized in SEO today. These types are:

Location-based. Directs online visitors to the various pages located within the website.

Attribute-based. Best used for e-commerce websites as they show the trail of attributes online users are looking for within a specific product or item.

Path-based. Much like a sitemap, path-based breadcrumbs allow online visitors to view the entire navigational path they traveled to arrive at a specific webpage.

Advantages of using Breadcrumbs

Because navigating the web is becoming more and more complex, Breadcrumbs are actually contributing to better SEO. It leaves a trail of many advantages for those utilizing SEO.Among those are:

Indexing of inner webpages within a website. Most websites have a multitude of pages which are not linked from any part of the website except the archives. A well-linked website helps the search engine to easily navigate until the last level of a website. From here, the search engine is able to index their keywords in an orderly manner. This allows for an easier navigating experience.

Interlinking and entire website thoroughly. Using Breadcrumb navigation in your website ensures an effective linking of various webpages. Major search engines such as Google gives a lot of importance to a well-linked website.

Distribution of page rank to all webpages. A well-linked and Well-indexed website helps search engines such as Google to effectively distribute the page rank to the internal webpages. All first level webpages will get a uniformed page rank lower than the main homepage while all second webpages will get ranked lower. All succeeding lower pages will get ranked according to their numbers.

Breadcrumbs in SEO make life easier for website owners as online visitors will be able to find whatever they are looking for in your website within minutes, regardless of where they land. If you are looking to establish an e-commerce website, you may need to consider learning how to utilize this effective SEO tool.