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.
Last Part Breadcrumb Trail Active or Non-Active
-
Breadcrumbs have been debated quite a bit in the past. Some claim that the last part of the breadcrumb trail should be non-active to inform users they have reached the end. In other words, Do not link the current page to itself.
On the other hand, that portion of the breadcrumb would won't be displayed in the SERPS and if it was may lead to a higher CTR.
Foe example: www.website.com/fans/panasonic-modelnumber
panasonic-modelnumber would not be active as part of the breadcrumb.
What is your take?
-
I would usually say no but so many sites seem to link to that same page they are viewing... If you are doing it for schema markup in Google SERPs all their examples show linking to the last part of the breadcrumb, see google rich snippets
If you want to inform users you can examine adding a text element for the last part but most just leave the last part as the page you are viewing.
-
Hi
I believe breadcrumbs are very valuable and you should not turn them for the home page every other page should have a breadcrumb.
There are methods you want to show up in the SERPS but honestly you page title should reflect the relevance of the page to the person searching therefore showing people the breadcrumb is not a bad thing in my opinion.
All best,
Tom
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
-
Merge 2 websites into one, using a non-existing, new domain.
I need to merge https://www.WebsiteA.com and https://www.WebsiteB.com to a fresh new domain (with no content) https://www.WebsiteC.com. I want to do it the best way to keep existing SEO juice. Website A is the companies home page and built with Wordpress Website B is the company product page and built with Wordpress Website C will be the new site containing both website A and B, utilizing Wordpress also. What is the best way to do this? I have research a lot and keep hitting walls on how to do it. It's a little trickier because it's two different domains going to a brand new domain. Thanks
Technical SEO | | jarydcat10 -
Non-Existent Parent Pages SEO Impact
Hello, I'm working with a client that is creating a new site. They currently are using the following URL structure: http://clientname.com/products/furry-cat-muffins/ But the landing page for the directory /products/ does not actually have any content. They have a similar issue for the /about/ directory where the menu actually sends you to /about/our-story/ instead of /about/. Does it hurt SEO to have the URL structure set up in this way and also does it make sense to create 301 redirects from /about/ to /about/our-story/?
Technical SEO | | Alder0 -
301 redirect: canonical or non canonical?
Hi, Newbie alert! I need to set up 301 redirects for changed URLs on a database driven site that is to be redeveloped shortly. The current site uses canonical header tags. The new site will also use canonical tags. Should the 301 redirects map the canonical URL on the old site to the corresponding canonical for the new design . . . or should they map the non canonical database URLs old and new? Given that the purpose of canonicals is to indicate our preferred URL, then my guess is that's what I should use. However, how can I be sure that Google (for example) has indexed the canonical in every case? Thx in anticipation.
Technical SEO | | ztalk1120 -
Is it ok to use H1 tags in breadcrumbs?
A client has an e-commerce site and she doesn't want a page title on the products page. She has breadcrumbs though. Her website developer suggests putting the H1 on the breadcrumbs. So: products> Gifts > picture frame with h1 tags round the word "picture frame". Is this ok to do? Or is it a bad thing for SEO purposes? Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Can I mark up breadcrumbs without showing them? (responsive design)
I am working on a site that has responsive design. We use faceted search for the desktop version but implemented a style of breadcrumbs for the mobile version as sidebars take up too much screen real estate. On the desktop design we are putting a display:none in front of the breadcrumbs. If we mark up those breadcrumbs and they are behind a display none, can we still get the rich snippets? Will Google see this is cloaking? In follow up, is there a way to markup breadcrumbs in the or somewhere else that is constant?
Technical SEO | | MarloSchneider0 -
Web config redirects not working where a trailing slash is involved
I'm having real trouble with getting working redirects in place to use on a site we're re-launching with a modified url structure. Old URL: http://www.example.com/example_folder/ New URL: http://www.example.com/example-of-new-folder/ Now, where the old URL's have a trailing slash the web.config simply will not accept it. It says the URL can start with a slash, but not end with a slash. However, many of my URL's do end with a slash so I need a workaround. These are the rules I'm putting in place: <location path="example_folder/"></location> Thanks
Technical SEO | | AndrewAkesson0 -
How to force a trailing slash after the domain name
My campaign analysis is predictably listing domain.com and domain.com/ as repeated content. I've searched and searched but cannot find a way to force a trailing slash on the end of the domain name unless there's a file or directory after it.. Is there a way to accomplish this using .htaccess
Technical SEO | | JollyBoy0 -
404 errors on non-existent URLs
Hey guys and gals, First Moz Q&A for me and really looking forward to being part of the community. I hope as my first question this isn't a stupid one but I was just struggling to find any resource that dealt with the issue and am just looking for some general advice. Basically a client has raised a problem with 404 error pages - or the lack thereof- on non-existent URLs on their site; let's say for example: 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels/asdfas' Obviously content never existed on this page so its not like you're saying 'hey, sorry this isn't here anymore'; its more like- 'there was never anything here in the first place'. Currently in this fictitious example typing in 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels/asdfas**'** returns the same content as the 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels' page which I appreciate isn't ideal. What I was wondering is how far do you take this issue- I've seen examples here on the seomoz site where you can edit the URI in a similar manner and it returns the same content as the parent page but with the alternate address. Should 404's be added across all folders on a site in a similar way? How often would this scenario be and issue particularly for internal pages two or three clicks down? I suppose unless someone linked to a page with a misspelled URL... Also would it be worth placing 301 redirects on a small number of common mis-spellings or typos e.g. 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towles' to the correct URLs as opposed to just 404s? Many thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | AJ2340