Google Search Console Adds Breadcrumb Report

Structured data continues to become an important part of Google's organic search arsenal as it looks to enrich research results. Continued markup support is used to ask webmasters to submit more data for crawlers to review and play around with when indexing and SERP display.

In recent weeks many site owners have been asking about the Breadcrumb markup email Search Console has been sending out in the last few weeks.

These emails come as part of a roll-out of a new search console report for Breadcrumbs.

Google wants a crumby website experience

Google has added another new structured data report, allowing site owners to check whether breadcrumb markup has been implemented correctly quickly. The ‘Breadcrumbs’ report appears under the Enhancements section in Search Console along with other reports related to the implementation of structured data.

As is the case with the other structured data reports, this report shows users which sets of breadcrumb structured data have been implemented correctly, which ones have not, and which ones have warnings.

Where to find the breadcrumb report in your search console

If Search Console detects errors with breadcrumb markup implementation, then it will identify what’s missing from the markup so you can fix the problem quickly and efficiently, in many cases when errors are spotted an automated email will be sent to inform webmasters. 

Google Search uses breadcrumb markup in the body of a web page to categorize the information from the page in search results.

Given the fact that Google is displaying breadcrumbs more prominently in search results for both desktop and mobile, it’s more important than ever to make sure the markup is valid.

Where Google would previously show full URLs in search snippets, it is now showing breadcrumbs instead. Google relies on valid markup to generate the breadcrumbs seen in search results.

Since websites do not all follow a similar URL structure Google prefers breadcrumbs instead to provide a more uniform display and indicate to users the hierarchy in which the page is located.

The effect of Breadcrumbs

An invalid markup could result in a page’s breadcrumb information not being displayed correctly in search results. Having an invalid markup won’t hurt rankings, but it’s good practice to provide Google with as much accurate information about a page as possible, which can never be seen as a bad thing in my book.

I'm personally a fan of breadcrumbs as it gives the user a better way to navigate your site and understand how your content is curated. It also provides an opportunity for improved interlinking and navigation and helps build authority across subfolders.

Implementing the Breadcrumb markup can be done using JSON-LD, RDFa, or Microdata. While they don't have to always be a visible user experience with these implementations breadcrumbs can also be made as part of a page’s visual design using HTML, which I personally recommend.

Follow the crumbs

Have you received a flag about your sites breadcrumbs lately? Are you planning to implement them on your site? Do you have them already? Let us know in the comments section below.

Contact us

If you would like us to help set up your Google Search Console or want to know more about digital marketing for your business, then don’t be shy we’ re happy to assist. Simply contact us

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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on Google Search Console.

• Quickly Export Search Console Keyword Raking Data in Full
• SEO Reports Just Got Easier With Data Studio
• How To Reclaim More Of Your Sites Keyword Data

Tags: SEO, Reporting