Guidelines for Breadcrumb Usability And SEO

 What is Breadcrumb?

Breadcrumbs or breadcrumb trail is a navigation aid used in user interfaces. It allows users to keep track of their locations within programs or documents. The term comes from the trail of breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gretel in the popular fairytale.

Importance of Breadcrumbs For Usability

There are various pro-breadcrumb arguments by Nielsen and other usability experts such as the fact that breadcrumbs:

• Help users visualize their current location in relation to the rest of the web site.
• Enable one-click access to higher site levels and thus help users who enter a site through search or deep links
• Take up very little space on the page.
• Reduce the bounce rate. In fact, breadcrumbs can be an excellent way to entice first-time visitors to continue browsing through a web site after having viewed the landing page.
• Enable users to reach pages and complete tasks faster

Guidelines for Breadcrumb Usability And SEO

Whilst there exist several UI techniques that are used to render breadcrumbs, there are generally-agreed upon usability and SEO guidelines for breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs should:

• Never replace primary navigation. They have been devised as a secondary navigation aid and should always be used as such.
• Not be used if all the pages are on the same level. Breadcrumbs are intended to show hierarchy.
• Show hierarchy and not history. To go back, users use the browser’s back button. Replicating this facility defies the purpose of having breadcrumbs.
• Be located in the top half of your web page. It can be placed above everything on the top of the page, just below the main navigation bar or just above the headline of the current page.
• Not be too large. The breadcrumb trail is a secondary navigation aid and hence its size and prominence should be less than that of the primary navigation.
• Progress from the highest level to the lowest, one step at a time.
• Start with the homepage and end with the current page.
• Have a simple link for each level (except for the current page). If the trail includes non clickable elements such as page titles then include them but clearly differentiate which parts are clickable.
• Have a simple, one-character separator between each level (usually “>”).
• Not be cluttered with unnecessary text such as “You are here” or “Navigation”.
• Include the full navigational path from the homepage to the current page. Not displaying certain levels will confuse users.
• Include the full page title in the breadcrumb trail. Also ensure consistency between the page address and the breadcrumb. If the page titles include keywords, then this will make your breadcrumbs both human and search engine friendly.