Do we need breadcrumbs?

[JohnW-UK]

I found myself in a weird position today having to defend the use of breadcrumbs.... This is what I wrote....

From an SEO point of view it is best practice to have breadcrumbs as they are high up in the code and help the search engines crawling the site. Do you need a breadcrumb for SEO – Yes – as well as from a usability point of you view users can navigate a breadcrumb instead of hitting the back button.

What would you have said?

[Matt-Williamson]

I would have said that breadcrumbs are a positive as they show the user the exact location of the product they are looking at and give them an easy trail to find similar/alternative products. The other areas of navigation in close proximity only show one level (presuming your client means nav menu etc?). Then I would also say that some of the most successful websites such as Amazon still use breadcrumbs in order to help customers from a usability point of view. From a search engine point of view; Google actually displays the breadcrumbs in the search results giving you more links in each search listing, which is a positive thing. Breadcrumbs in search results is likely to help increase click-through as the person searching might not be after the exact result listed but they can see you have a category for those products, so they can click straight through and see if you have exactly what they are looking for.

It must also be remembered that product pages can be accessed a number of different ways - search on site, search off site, links from other sites, through the navigation menu and so on. Therefore a clear trail for the user will help them locate other similar products and make it easier to navigate and engage with the website, meaning higher average pageviews and a lower bounce rate...

[JohnW-UK]

Not all pages indexed in google with breadcrumbs show the breadcrumb in the results. How does google decide which sites to show breadcrumbs on and which not to.

Is the site lightly to not perform as well in search engines without breadcrumbs? The client does not seem to be thinking about usability - he is more concerned that he thinks it looks good....

[Matt-Williamson]

You are right not all sites indexed with breadcrumbs show breadcrumbs in the SERPs - here is Matt Cutts take on this which might be useful for you

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmOjX5DlN2A

I would put together an example of a few top preforming sites that are leading the way in e-commerce that have breadcrumbs in order to support your argument. It is hard to comment on whether your site looks good. Your client must remember that a good looking design is important but not at the sacrifice of usability else your customers will soon go else were as you will find it is all about how quickly and easily they can access the information they are looking for. If any parts of your design hinder this you will soon know about it...

Is the site not likely to preform as well in the SERPs - well Google has integrated them for a reason - improving their search results. On a very basic level you will have more information against your listing - including extra links so this is likely to aid the user and encourage them to click on your result.

Breadcrumbs are essentially a form of rich snippet and they add value to your listing -

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=185417&topic=1088474&ctx=topic

Also one other thing is that breadcrumbs don't have to be in a massive bright font from a design point of view. A smaller grey font in a white space above the product(s) can work just as well and get listed. If you do a search for products you will see some well known sites use this tact..

[JohnW-UK]

Hi Matt,

Pondering how to rephrase into bullet points the key factors to engage with him about. Simple straight forward layman's English to why bullet points are needed.

So far :-

Enhances ability for search engines to crawl the site.

Potential for Breadcrumb to appear in SERPs thus enhancing your listing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmOjX5DlN2A

Usability - users tend to attempt using a breadcrumb for navigation

Usability - users find it easier to understand how the site is built and how the navigation

What do you think ?....

[Matt-Williamson]

Yeah I think your list is looking good

Enhances ability for search engines to crawl the site.

Potential for Breadcrumb to appear in SERPs thus enhancing your listing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmOjX5DlN2A

Usability - users tend to attempt using a breadcrumb for navigation

Usability - users find it easier to understand how the site is built and how the navigation works

More pages are likely to be viewed by customers as breadcrumbs provide easy access to similar and alternate products

Successful popular sites such as Amazon use breadcrumbs alongside other navigation to help customers.

You might want to point out that you can make the font size and font colour subtle so it is clearly visible to users but doesn't impact on design and maybe send a screen shot with a few examples?

[AndyMacLean]

Breadcrumbs are a great way for engines to understand how your site is structured and to pass link juice logically and evenly to the places you want it. For bigger sites especially I really wouldnt advise not using breadcrumbs.

[h2o2]

@ Andy Mackean

Hi Andy, Do you mind elaborating on why could breadcrumbs negatively impact for spreading your link juice if you have a large site?

[AndyMacLean]

Hi h2o2, maybe the phrasing wasnt clear but I think you misunderstood:

"For bigger sites especially I really wouldnt advise not using breadcrumbs."