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.
Breadcrumbs on Mobile How important are they for SEO?
-
Due to Poor unsightly look of breadcrumbs and the space it takes up above the fold we only employ breadcrumbs on our desktop version. Breadcrumbs are hidden from view on mobile version. However as mobile first indexing is now in play what technical SEO impacts will this have? one thing that comes to mind is crawling deeper pages where breadcrumbs made them accessible in less than 3 link clicks? But i am unsure now of the impacts of not having breadcrumbs visible for mobile version of our site.
-
From my understanding of mobile-first indexing, your mobile site will become the primary version Google crawlers see when they are looking at your website. So in terms of the impact of hiding the breadcrumbs on your mobile site, Google will see that you've hidden them and may or may not see them on the desktop version because they may or may not bother to crawl the desktop version.
My question to you would be - what value are you seeing from the breadcrumbs on desktop? Can you check your analytics data to see whether users are using these breadcrumbs for navigation? Do you mark up your breadcrumbs with schema to allow them to show up in rich snippets? If the breadcrumbs do not currently add much value to your users and if they don't serve an SEO purpose, you may not need to bother including them on mobile. On the other hand, if you know that they add to a better UX, you may see a benefit from adding them to the mobile version of the site. This is because Google likes to reward sites with a better UX for mobile users. If you are using them more for search engines to have easier crawl access, I would suggest revisiting your site structure more broadly to ensure that no important page is further than 3-4 clicks from the homepage; and/or ensure that you keep your sitemaps up to date with all important pages and submit in GSC and BWT.
-
Breadcrumbs are more for UX purposes, allowing users to go through a website more efficiently. I personally can't see any benefits of them on a mobile view as they're more of a hindrance, maybe try making them visible in the sites footer; on mobile.
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
-
SEO + Structured Data for Metered Paywall
I have a site that will have 90% of the content behind a metered paywall. So all content is accessible in a metered way. All users who aren't logged in will have access to 3 articles (of any kind) in a 30 day period. If they try to access more in a 30 day period they will hit a paywall. I was reading this article here on how to handle structured data with Google for content behind a paywall: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/paywalls-seo-strategy/311359/However, the content is not ALWAYS behind a paywall, since it is metered. So if a new user comes to the site, they can see the article (regardless of what it is). Is there a different way to handle content that will be SOMETIMES behind a paywall bc of a metered strategy? Theoretically I want 100% of the content indexed and accessible in SERPs, it will just be accessible depending on the user's history (cookies) with the site. I hope that makes sense.
Technical SEO | | triveraseo0 -
Barba Plugin and SEO
Hello, community! My client wants to use the barba.js plugin for their new site. What are the implications for SEO?
Technical SEO | | SimpleSearch0 -
Any SEO benefits of adding a Glossary to our website?
Hi all, I manage a website for a software company. Many terms can be quite tricky so it would be nice to add a Glossary page. Other than that, I have 2 questions: 1. What would be the SEO benefits? 2. How would you suggest to implement this glossary so we can get as much SEO benefit as possible (for example how would we link, where would we place the glossary in the terms of the sitemap, etc.). Any advice appreciated! Katarina
Technical SEO | | Katarina-Borovska2 -
JavaScript page loader - SEO impact
Hello all,
Technical SEO | | Lvet
I am working on a site that has a bizarre page load system. All pages get loaded trough the same Javascript snippet, for example: Changing the values in the form changes the page that is loaded. The most incredible thing is that, against my expectations, pages do get indexed by Google.
My question is: "Does loading pages dynamically using JavaScript affect the overall SEO performance?" Why are pages getting indexed? Thank you for shedding light on this.
Cheers
Luca0 -
SEO value of InDesign pages?
Hi there, my company is exploring creating an online magazine built with Adobe's InDesign toolset. If we proceeded with this, could we make these pages "as spiderable" as normal html/css webpages? Or are we limited to them being less spiderable, or not at all spiderable?
Technical SEO | | TheaterMania1 -
Can a CMS affect SEO?
As the title really, I run www.specialistpaintsonline.co.uk and 6 months ago when I first got it it had bad links which google had put a penalty against it so losts it value. However the penalty was lift in Sept, the site corresponds to all guidelines and seo work has been done and constantly monitored. the issue I have is sales and visits have not gone up, we are failing fast and running on 2 or 3 sales a month isn't enough to cover any sort of cost let alone wages. hence my question can the cms have anything to do with it? Im at a loss and go grey any help or advice would be great. thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | TeamacPaints0 -
International Seo - Canada
Our organization is currently only operating in the USA but will soon be entering the Canadian market. We did a lot of research and decided that for our needs it would be best to use a subfolder for Canada. Initially we will be targeting the english speaking community but eventually we will want to expand to the french speaking Canadians as well. The question is - is there a preferred version in setting up the subfolders: www.website.org/ca/ -- default will be english www.website.org/ca/fr/ - french www.website.org/en-ca/ - english www.website.org/fr-ca/ - french www.website.org/ca/en/ -english www.website.org/ca/fr/ - french Thanks
Technical SEO | | Morris770 -
200 Redirects for SEO instead of 301
We are working with a company on re-platforming our website. On a call yesterday they outlined a strategy to use 200 redirects for our top keywords instead of 301s. I am not familiar with this type of redirect and was wondering if anyone could provide some more insight.
Technical SEO | | EvergladesDirect0
