Breadcrumb schema

What breadcrumb schema does

Breadcrumb schema is BreadcrumbList structured data that describes where a page sits in your site's hierarchy, such as Home, then Services, then Boiler repair. Google can use it to show a breadcrumb trail instead of a raw URL in results. Since January 2025, Google's breadcrumb documentation says these trails appear on desktop results only, not on mobile.

Is it worth adding?

Breadcrumb markup is low effort and helps Google understand your structure. The visible breadcrumbs on the page matter more for visitors, giving them an easy way back up to broader sections. Markup and visible breadcrumbs should match.

For small sites, breadcrumbs are one of the easier pieces of structured data to get right, because most themes and platforms can output them automatically from your existing menu structure.

Test it after any theme or plugin change, since updates can quietly remove or duplicate the markup.

An example in practice

A furniture shop's URLs are long strings of numbers. With breadcrumb markup matching its on-page trail, desktop searchers see "Home › Dining › Oak tables" in results instead, which tells them far more about the page.

How to test breadcrumb schema

Run a page through Google's Rich Results Test. It reports whether breadcrumb data was found and whether it's valid. Search Console has a Breadcrumbs enhancement report covering the whole site. Then compare the trail in the markup with the breadcrumb a visitor sees on the page.

Errors to watch for

• Marking up a path that doesn't exist as visible navigation.
• Including the current page as a link to itself in the trail's middle.
• Having different hierarchies in the markup and the menus.
• Expecting the trail to show in mobile results.

Related markup terms

• Breadcrumb: Navigational trail showing where a page sits in the site.
• Schema (structured data): Standardised markup that clarifies entities for search engines.
• Site architecture: How pages are organised and linked.