Breadcrumb / SEO Terms Breadcrumb A breadcrumb is a secondary navigation element that shows users their location within a website’s hierarchy. Typically displayed as a horizontal list near the top of a webpage, breadcrumbs help users understand where they are and how they arrived there. For example, a breadcrumb trail on a nonprofit site might read: Home > Get Involved > Volunteer Opportunities > Youth Mentorship. Each part of the trail is clickable, allowing users to move back to previous sections with ease. Breadcrumbs improve both user experience and site structure by reducing friction during navigation. They are especially helpful on content-rich or multi-level websites, such as e-commerce stores, blogs, knowledge bases and online directories. Breadcrumbs allow visitors to backtrack without using the browser’s “Back” button and give search engines more context about page relationships. There are three main types of breadcrumb trails: location-based (reflecting site hierarchy), path-based (reflecting user journey), and attribute-based (used in filtered navigation like product categories). In addition to helping users, breadcrumbs also offer SEO benefits. Search engines like Google may display breadcrumbs in search results, replacing long URLs with a cleaner path that signals relevance and improves click-through rates. To make the most of breadcrumbs, use clear and consistent labels, follow a logical structure, and mark up your breadcrumb trails with schema.org structured data for better indexing. Whether your site serves donors, customers or researchers, breadcrumbs make it easier to navigate deep content, improve accessibility and reinforce site clarity.