Google Following the Breadcrumb Trail – New Breadcrumb Display May Have Impact on Google Ranking Algorithm

By Mike Gullaksen and Jeff MacGurn

We recently noticed something new on Google — breadcrumbs showing up in the SERPs instead of a site subfolders for the url. We believe this is part of a test by Google regarding click through rates as they relate to what is displayed.

The example below shows results for “mens pinstripe pants.” In the 2nd and 3rd position, Google displays the breadcrumbs, versus the 1st position where they show the standard subfolders of the ranking url. This new display shows the end user the site map progression of keywords like “men’s,” “pants” from the landing site.

Breadcrumbs are a best practice for site navigation and usability for the end user. They are obviously a best practice related to SEO and internal linking of pages. The idea of breadcrumbs is to help someone navigating through your site to see where they have come from or see the natural progression of content e.x. category / sub category / product page.

So the question is — Will having breadcrumbs become a factor in the ranking of long tail terms in the Google’s algorithm? Will breadcrumbs play into the click through rate algorithm criteria? Clearly Google is testing this concept now – and if they see higher CTRs or Conversion Rates from the end advertisers – expect the use of breadcrumbs to increase in importance on ranking – thereby making their usage non-optional in website design.

We will analyze the impacts on our end with data from our clients once we get a large enough data set to be statistically relevant so we can make informed insights.

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