Google Testing Breadcrumb Trail in SERP Results

Posted by Hiren on August 20th, 2009 | Google

Rob Hammond noticed that Google is testing breadcrumbs showing up in the SERPs instead of site sub-folders for the URL. In the 7th and 10th position, Google displays the breadcrumbs. Screenshot below:

motability-serp
Leo Fogarty also came across some strange results which listed breadcrumb data before the Meta Description in the results. Screenshot below:

Google Testing Breadcrumb
And here’s another example where the breadcrumb is placed beneath the title:

google-testing-breadcrumbs1
Breadcrumbs are a most excellent practice for site navigation and usability for the visitors. This type of navigation literally creates a trail that users can follow back to where they came from. If your website has a deep structure of nested categories and subcategories using four or more levels, the breadcrumb can often display more levels than the global navigation can accommodate. You can see some nice example of breadcrumbs here.

Now the question is – how will new breadcrumb display may have impact on Google Algorithm? It’s too early to tell as it seems Google is just testing this concept now but it does show that Google can read and understand breadcrumbs. If they will notice increase in Conversion Rates (CTRs) from the end users than they will defiantly increase importance of breadcrumbs to increase ranking.

If you are not using breadcrumb in your site than it’s right time to start adding them :)

Image credit: Richard Hearn

under: Google     

About

Hiren Ponkia is a Freelance SEO Consultant in India and the author of the SEO Addicted blog. Actively association to the Search Engine Marketing since last 5 years has helped Hiren to develop the understanding & foresight of today’s online market trends, leading to achieve the pinnacle top in the SERP’s as well as the conversion game.

20 Comments
DominatingSEO Said,
August 20th, 2009 @2:03 am  

Oh 1 more test! I wonder how smart Google spider has became.

I guess this breadcrumb idea is going to be implemented like one line sitelinks. Let’s see how this test works for Google.

-DS

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Hiren Said,
August 20th, 2009 @2:16 am  

@Rahul – Thanks:) Yeah competition in search industry is on it’s highest.

In 2009 Google have done following improvement:

Google had improves flash indexing (January ),
Google introduce Canonical Link Element (February),
Regular PR and Backlink Updates and Search Refinements and Snippets (March and April),
Google announced a new set of features called as Search/Show Options and Microsoft New Search Engine BING Launched (May)
Page Rank Sculpting andIncrease in Social Media Importance (June)
Site Links Updates and URL Removal Request Update in web master tool (July)
Next Generation Architecture for web Search – Google’s Caffeine (August)

On other side, their main competitor microsoft had lunched new search engine BING. Bing brings a new way of thinking to using SERPs, which has shown to demonstrably improve the satisfaction of searchers in finding the answers to their questions.

Recently Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal also sound promissing and expers are predict that it will affect on search market shares.

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Hiren Said,
August 20th, 2009 @2:21 am  

@DominatingSEO They are working hard to improve exiting Architecture for web Search :) I am just thinking how will they detect Breadcrumb..may be they will look at <div class=breadcrumb…Just my random thoughts :)

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Acme Infoway Said,
August 20th, 2009 @2:59 am  

It will be more user friendly update. Thanks hiren for sharing. It is true that search industries are becoming more competitive and visitors are getting more relevant results in speed.

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Matt Said,
August 20th, 2009 @3:04 am  

Hi Hiren, further to what I mentioned on Twitter I firmly believe that SEOs should be concentrating on user experience when it comes to optimising sites for the search engines. A lot of the changes that you talk about in your comment and blog post such as search/show options, increase in social media importance and testing the breadcrumb trail in search results are (I believe) aimed at improving search results for users. I think that sometimes as a SEO it’s easy to get a bit too focussed on the technology and changes to algorithms and forget about user experience at the same time.

The use of breadcrumbs on your site is a great way to improve the navigability of your site and make it a better place for visitors to explore, if Google do start to value the content of breadcrumb trails in search results it shows their desire to highlight those websites that are most relevant to the the user’s search term while providing good user experience.

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Rob Green Said,
August 20th, 2009 @3:54 am  

@Hiren – do you think this is going to affect actual rankings, or do you think it is just another way to help users decide the best results to click on? I think results that display a logical breadcrumb trail would have a much higher CTR, but updates similar to this, like site links, didn’t affect rank- only the appearance of the results.

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Hiren Said,
August 20th, 2009 @4:21 am  

@Rob – I am not sure how much it will affect actual ranking but as @Matt suggested it shows their desire to highlight those websites that are most relevant to the the user’s search term while providing good user experience.

like site links, it will increase the size of your Google listing and make your site look more authoritative — which increases the CTR your site receives from Google searchers.

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Internet Business Said,
September 7th, 2009 @3:29 pm  

It’s interesting to see that Google’s displaying breadcrumbs instead of the actual URL. I’m assuming that would be included into Google’s algorithm if not added already. It would be interesting to see how Google is fetching the breadcrumb data from. I think it could just be extracted from the URL itself. e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com/category/subcategory/article would be something like this http://www.yourdomain.com >> category >> subcategory >> article

Interesting observation. Thanks for sharing!

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Net Age | Internet Marketing Said,
May 15th, 2010 @1:58 pm  

Hmmm, I did try posting here previously, but it seems the moderation monsters have gobbled up my comment. Funny that it had to be about breadcrumbs! So here goes again, maybe I have better luck this time around!

I like the use of breadcrumbs in the returned search results, as it definitely makes for better human viewing than having to look at the extended URL. The trend is towards making the user experience a better one, and I feel we’ll be seeing more breadcrumbs in Google’s results, not just in positions 7 & 10.

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Jane Said,
June 18th, 2010 @9:03 am  

I think that google Breadcrumbs is a useful feature for users, it allows them to find if the site contains necessary categories before accessing it.

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Deborah Said,
June 23rd, 2010 @3:32 am  

Is there a way of getting a breadcrumb for your listing in search results? This feature could be very useful.

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Bret Said,
June 30th, 2010 @1:28 am  

I wonder are those breadcrumbs clickable or just a simple text, and how is it possible to enable them.

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Frederick Said,
July 1st, 2010 @3:47 am  

I find great the fact that Google started to detect web pages that use breadcrumb navigation and replaced the URL displayed below the snippet with the web site’s structure.

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Kathryne Said,
July 2nd, 2010 @9:11 am  

I have heard that google is placing breadcrumbs only in case URLs are too long, too short, or too obscure to add useful information.

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Stacy Said,
July 5th, 2010 @9:14 am  

I’ve heard that by introducing the site hierarchies into search results, Google hopes to offer this missing contextual information before users even choose to visit the webpage.

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Thomas Said,
July 6th, 2010 @9:00 am  

Is it true that if Google displays breadcrumbs for your website then you basically have more links on Google’s result page. Each page in the breadcrumbs line has its own link.

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Matthew Said,
October 28th, 2011 @5:41 am  

The Google breadcrumbs have become permanent in the SERPs. Great because you get more links to your site.

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