Breadcrumbs-Seo friendly navigation

Breadcrumbs are a type of navigation which helps the user to keep track of their location. It is a popular Seo technique used for better navigation as it helps the search engine crawlers to crawl the interlinked pages in an easier way. Breadcrumbs helps the user to return to the previous page they visited. In this way, they are able to track their location and this results in an enhanced user experience.

Why it is known as Breadcrumbs?

The term is derived from the popular story of Hansel and Gretel which depicts two little children using breadcrumbs as a navigation strategy to return to their home from the jungles. With the help of breadcrumbs there were able to return to their home safely without getting lost in the jungles.

Types of Breadcrumbs


Breadcrumbs are divided into three types given below:-

Location based– These are used to show the current location of the user according to the site hierarchy.

Path based– These are used to show the exact user path to a given page on the website.

Attribute based– These are used to show the attributes of the current page.


Example 

A typical example of breadcrumb navigation is given below:-

Home:Category Name:Subcategory Name:Product Name

Home:Home Made Gifts:Soft Toys:Teddy Bear




Sites using Breadcrumbs

 There are various sites on the world wide web which use this from of trail navigation. Some of the major ones are given below:-

Delicious
Guardian
Infosys
Apple
Nasa
NDTV
Nestle

Please Note:- Google too picks up breadcrumb navigation from certain sites as per its search algorithm and displays them in the search results, hence this sort of navigation is highly recommended.