Breadcrumbs on product pages: help shoppers back to the category
Breadcrumbs show where a product sits in your catalogue and give shoppers a one-click way back. See how they help conversion and search.
2 min read
Area
CRO & UX
Severity
Medium
Fix effort
Small
Stores failing
33%
Of 151 stores we scanned where this check applies, 33% fail it and 67% pass. See all benchmarks.
A breadcrumb trail shows the path from the home page to the current product, such as Home, Shirts, Linen shirt. It tells a shopper where they are and gives a quick route back to the category. This check looks for a breadcrumb trail on the product page.
Why it matters
Many shoppers arrive on a product page from search and have never seen your catalogue. If the product is not quite right, breadcrumbs offer the next click. Without them, the back button is the only path, and it often leaves your store.
What the audit looks at
The audit looks for a breadcrumb trail in the markup or in structured data on the product page.
What usually causes it
- A theme option for breadcrumbs left switched off
- A custom product template without the breadcrumb block
- Breadcrumbs shown only on desktop
- Products in no collection, so there is nothing to show
How to fix it
Add breadcrumbs to product and collection pages. The effort is small, usually a setting or a paste and under 30 minutes.
- Breadcrumbs give visitors arriving from search a way to browse sideways instead of leaving.
- Mark them up with BreadcrumbList schema so Google shows the path in the result instead of a bare URL.
How to check it yourself
- Open a product page from a search result and see whether a trail appears.
- Check the markup for BreadcrumbList structured data.
- Test products in different collections.
Frequently asked questions
Do breadcrumbs help SEO?
They help search engines understand your structure and can appear in results when marked up.
Which path should a product show?
Show the path through its main category, even when it belongs to several.
Related checks
Check your own store
See whether your store passes this check
Paste your store URL. The audit loads your pages in a real browser and shows the result for this check with the evidence behind it.