Breadcrumb Trail:

Also called as “Breadcrumb” is a kind of navigation structure and has immense SEO value. A Breadcrumb Trail helps the user identify the category and section of the webpage he is in. Breadcrumb trails are generally found in websites with large amount of content which is organized hierarchically.

A Typical Breadcrumb Navigation looks like:

Homepage >> Section name >> Category Name >> Page Title

Kittu K >> SEO Tips Tricks & Techniques >> Breadcrumb Trail

Each Breadcrumb Trail element is linked to its relevant page on the left & right side of the “>>” symbol.

i.e. Clicking on SEO Tips, Tricks & Techniques will take you to the page containing all posts under that section. Clicking on the “Kittu K” will take you to the homepage of the website. This helps save the visitor, the time to scroll to the top of the page. He gets two choices right in front of him; navigate to the homepage or the main category.

Importance of Breadcrumb Trail / Navigation in SEO:

• Since breadcrumb is essentially a navigational structure, it helps in distributing the Page Rank evenly through the web pages. For e.g. PR of Homepage being 4 and of the article being 1 is not a very good scenario. Breadcrumb trails help the PR of your articles come up as well, in due time of course.

• When the visitor starts reading your article, a Breadcrumb Trail is the first line he comes across on the webpage. You can include your keywords and key phrases in the Breadcrumb Trail for maximum Impact on both the visitor and searchbots. The breadcrumb trail can get your visitor interested in reading more and thereby reducing your Bounce Rate. (I can see you smile now!!)

• The Breadcrumb Trail helps in linking all relevant pages of each section & category together. This helps build link architecture. Google appreciates it when your website is well structured and linked thoroughly from each page. Breadcrumb Trail gives Google Just what it wants. Internal linking helps in crawlability of your website, that is, a spider can reach your pages more easily. Read Importance of Link Architecture From Google Webmaster Central.

Bing’s Take on Website Navigation:

Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center says, “You can have great content and a plethora of high quality inbound links from authority sites, but if your site’s structure is flawed or broken, then it will still not achieve the optimal page rank you desire from search engines.”

Google Displays Breadcrumb Trails in SERP’s:

In the year 2009, a few blogger’s came across Breadcrumb Trails in Google’s search results pages.

Rob of Blogoscoped writes, “Just came across a very interesting Google search result which used breadcrumb data in the URL area .Very interesting implications beyond just the display here – it proves that Google is reading and understanding breadcrumb data.”

Leo of Leofogarty writes, “I came across an interesting result whilst using Google this week. The result listed breadcrumb data before the Meta Description in the results. I was lucky enough to see it on two related searches. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to see it since when performing searches but after a little further research it turns out I haven’t been the only person to see strange things in the SERP’s regarding breadcrumbs.”

Personally, I haven’t seen any breadcrumb trails in Google SERP’s. But, with Google, you just never know what concepts they come up with. Infact, I am sure many website owners and Blogger’s will be delighted with having Breadcrumb Navigation being included in the SERP’s of not only Google, But other Giant’s like Yahoo, Bing and ASK.

Yahoo! Sports Navigation:

The Yahoo! Sports site has consolidated the page navigation into a horizontal strip near the top of the page. On the homepage, under the Sports Home tab, there are links to most major sports, and additional sports are listed under the link to All Sports.

As you click around and move deeper into the site, you can always hover over the Sports Home tab to see a drop-down list of sports. Also, as you move around the site, the top section of the navigation builds a trail to show you exactly where you are.

The breadcrumb navigation exposes more options at all levels of the site. If, for example, you’re viewing a Player’s page, you can quickly move up to the player’s Team page or their League page, by clicking on the links in the breadcrumb trail.

Read The Entire Article at: How Do I Use the Yahoo Sports Navigation
Conclusion: Even Yahoo is not blind to breadcrumb navigation and uses it on their Yahoo Sports website.

Few Breadcrumb Navigation Examples:

If you come across any unique Breadcrumb Navigation, Send me the link. I will put it on this post along with your link.