Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Are Breadcrumbs Really Necessary?
-
An SEO provider suggested we add breadcrumbs to the top of each page about 3 years ago, which we did.
3 years later we are going thru the site and find it really busy with lots of redundant and distracting elements.
We would like to remove the breadcrumbs from the top of the pages. Is there any real SEO downside to doing so?
All URLs are listed on our site map so I don't see why Google would not index all pages.Our domain is www.metro-manhattan.com
I have uploaded a sample page with a breadcrumb.
Thanks,
Alan -
Hi Alan and Jordan,
Firstly, Alan, thanks for raising this question as I am currently in a similar predicament and was wondering if Jordan, you could provide some insight?
For my website, which is the site for a magazine I work for, the current URL structure is www.website.com/article-title
On first glance, I thought it must be that we would have to re-structure the URLs to include the category structure, for example... www.website.com/category/sub-category/article-title
However, upon deeper investigation, I've seen that we do actually have breadcrumbs enabled therefore google is indexing and following the structure from this.
With this in mind, is it actually worth re-structuring the URLs to include these categories as it will take a long time to organise and implement.
Obviously, thinking in terms of UX, it is a must-do, but I'm just trying to weigh up the pro's and cons with this..
Appreciate your help,
Leigh
-
Breadcrumbs help with navigation purposes and are there for the user experience. Personally, I feel as though they provide a greater user experience.
I would do some analysis work and put a heat map on your site. Try using hotjar they have a free subscription model that I think will come in handy. You can also see where users are clicking the most etc. Do you some research and analysis work before removing elements. Also, Google is not going to de-index pages just because you remove bread crumbs so you have no worries there.
Personally after looking at your attachment I would remove the entire far right column and widen all the other elements. You already have the "click here" button and everything else seems a bit redundant.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is managed wordpress hosting bad for seo?
hi, i would like to create my own website, but I am confused either to choose cpanel hosting or managed wordpress
Web Design | | alan-shultis0 -
Does changing content and design of the website gonna affect my all the backlinks i have made till now
i have been working on my link profile for a month now, after learning about 5 step moz methodology i have decided that i would like to change all of the content of my site and taylor it to what my customers need, am i gonna loose all the domain authority if make changes? if it gonna affect, hows that gonna come out
Web Design | | calvinkj0 -
Have Your Thoughts Changed Regarding Canonical Tag Best Practice for Pagination? - Google Ignoring rel= Next/Prev Tagging
Hi there, We have a good-sized eCommerce client that is gearing up for a relaunch. At this point, the staging site follows the previous best practice for pagination (self-referencing canonical tags on each page; rel=next & prev tags referencing the last and next page within the category). Knowing that Google does not support rel=next/prev tags, does that change your thoughts for how to set up canonical tags within a paginated product category? We have some categories that have 500-600 products so creating and canonicalizing to a 'view all' page is not ideal for us. That leaves us with the following options (feel it is worth noting that we are leaving rel=next / prev tags in place): Leave canonical tags as-is, page 2 of the product category will have a canonical tag referencing ?page=2 URL Reference Page 1 of product category on all pages within the category series, page 2 of product category would have canonical tag referencing page 1 (/category/) - this is admittedly what I am leaning toward. Any and all thoughts are appreciated! If this were in relation to an existing website that is not experiencing indexing issues, I wouldn't worry about these. Given we are launching a new site, now is the time to make such a change. Thank you! Joe
Web Design | | Joe_Stoffel1 -
Payment Options in Footer
Hi Moz Community. I'm currently working on cleaning up a website footer on an e-commerce site. I was curious to find out if including payment options is important? Either text or image icons. Including Visa, AMEX etc. Are there benefits of displaying them? Image attached. Thanks vcdoL
Web Design | | Kdruckenbrod0 -
Migration from HTML to Wordpress - SEO Implications?
I am in the process of having a wordpress site developed to replace my current HTML site. (I currently have my website in html and a blog in wordpress in a sub directory). I am doing this in phases to try and preserve as much of my good rankings as possible. My first phase is to replicate my site with the exact same pages, meta data, and site structure. I'm hoping that google will see this as not much change and not change my rankings for the worse. I also made it a goal that my site speed tests be at least equal to what they are now. We will have to 301 all of the URLs however since it will be going from /example.html to /example. I believe my blog will also need to move into the root directory as well, so I need to 301 all of those pages. I plan to wait a couple months for Phase 2. Phase 2 involves replacing old content (photo galleries), and introducing new content (virtual tours, videos, new pages, etc.) One of my reasons for moving to wordpress is to keep up with current trends a little easier since I have very little time. (I am owner, website maintainer, SEO - all on my own). My question here is three parts. 1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? 2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? 3. Do I really need to wait to add new content? I might get antsy and want to do it sooner! 🙂 Thank you in advance!
Web Design | | CalicoKitty20001 -
Is having a site map page necessary?
Hello all! So I know having a sitemap XML file is important to include in your robots.txt file. I also know it is important to submit your XML sitemap to Google and Bing. However, I am wondering if it is beneficial for your site's SEO value to have a sitemap page displayed on your website? Or is this just a redundant action if you have already done the above two actions with your XML sitemap? Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | Myles920 -
Question on Breadcrumb and Canonical
Hi SEOmozers, I have another question. =] Thanks in advance. First question: How important is the breadcrumb for SEO? I know that breadcrumb makes better UX because it shows how the visitor landed on this page and the breadcrumb may show up in the search engine. But other than that, how important is it? Second Question: If I have a page that can be found via 2 locations, how should I handle this in regards to breadcrumb? For example, I have page A. You can access page A via Category A and Category B. Therefore, what I did was list Page A under Category A and when someone visit Category B and click on Page A, it will redirect to the page A that was found via Category A. The problem is on page A, the breadcrumb is Home > Category A > Page A. So if someone visit Category B and click on Page A, it redirects and the breadcrumb shows Home > Category A > Page A. What should I do with the breadcrumb for Category B > Page A? Should I create another page A and just use canonical on it? Should I create another page A but do not index it? or leave it as is? 1 Page A, can be access via 2 categories. Please advise. Thank you!
Web Design | | TommyTan0