BreadcrumbList

BreadcrumbList is a type in the Schema.org vocabulary used to describe a breadcrumb trail on a web page. It provides structured data that helps search engines and users understand a page’s position within the site hierarchy. By representing the sequence of pages leading to the current view, BreadcrumbList can support navigation cues and enhance search results with breadcrumb information.

A BreadcrumbList contains an itemListElement property, which is an ordered list of ListItem objects. Each ListItem has a position (an integer) and an item, which is the target page. The item often includes an @id with the page URL and a name, which is the visible label. The order of items should reflect the site structure and the path a user would typically follow to reach the current page.

JSON-LD is the recommended format for embedding BreadcrumbList data in modern pages, but Microdata and RDFa are also supported. Example in plain text:

{

"@context": "https://schema.org",

"@type": "BreadcrumbList",

"itemListElement": [

{ "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@id": "https://example.com", "name": "Home" } },

{ "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@id": "https://example.com/books", "name": "Books" } }

]

}

In practice, breadcrumb markup should reflect the visible trail and be accessible, using appropriate HTML nav elements with clear labels and ensuring the text labels match onscreen breadcrumbs.