A breadcrumb is a navigation pattern displaying the hierarchical path to the current page (Home > Category > Subcategory > Product), with corresponding BreadcrumbList structured data for search engines.
Breadcrumbs serve three purposes: user navigation (one-click access to parent categories), SEO (Google displays the breadcrumb path in SERP results, replacing the raw URL), and link-equity distribution (each breadcrumb link passes a fraction of the page's authority upward to its parent categories).
The corresponding JSON-LD:
{
"@type": "BreadcrumbList",
"itemListElement": [
{ "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://example.com" },
{ "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Leather Bags", "item": "https://example.com/categories/leather-bags" },
{ "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Brown Messenger Bag" }
]
}For ecommerce, breadcrumbs are one of the highest-leverage SEO patterns: they cost little to implement, distribute link equity in the right direction, and provide consistent UX.