Features

Breadcrumbs for WordPress

Breadcrumbs are the small trail of links near the top of a page, such as Home › Guides › WordPress SEO. They show visitors where they are, and they show search engines how your site fits together. CrawlWP adds both the trail and the breadcrumb schema, and steps aside if your theme already shows breadcrumbs.

What it does

What CrawlWP breadcrumbs do

Show a breadcrumb trail on your WordPress posts and pages, add breadcrumb schema for search engines, or use one or the other.

WordPress breadcrumbs settings in CrawlWP: home label, separator, current page, primary taxonomy and BreadcrumbList schema

Breadcrumbs shortcode

Breadcrumbs shortcode to show the trail wherever you place it: a Shortcode block, a theme template, or a page builder.

Your own home label

The first item can say Home, your site name, or anything that fits.

Any separator

A character or a piece of HTML between items. The default is “›“.

Show the current page

Show the page you are on as the last item, without a link, or leave it out.

Primary taxonomy

Choose which taxonomy, such as category, builds the trail for posts.

BreadcrumbList schema

Adds the trail to your structured data on every page, so search engines see where each page sits.

Schema without the shortcode

Theme already shows breadcrumbs? Turn the shortcode off and keep only the schema.

Default styling included

A small stylesheet loads with the shortcode, so the trail looks tidy straight away.

Every step is a link

Each item links to its page so that visitors can jump back to a category or the homepage.

Part of one schema graph

The breadcrumb data joins your organization, website, and article markup.

More internal links

Every trail links back to your category pages and homepage.

Free

Breadcrumbs and breadcrumb schema are part of CrawlWP Lite.

Why it matters

Why use breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs show visitors where they are on your site, and let them move up a level in one click. That helps on sites with lots of categories or pages.

Breadcrumb schema describes the same trail to search engines. Google may show it in desktop search results in place of the plain URL.

  • Help visitors see where they are
  • Let them move up a level in one click
  • Show search engines how your site is organized
  • Give Google a trail it may show on desktop
  • Add internal links to your category pages

How it works

Add breadcrumbs to WordPress in three steps

It takes a few minutes. After that, every page gets its trail on its own.

Step 1

Turn on breadcrumbs

On the Breadcrumbs screen, tick Enable breadcrumbs. If your theme already shows breadcrumbs, leave it off and keep only the schema switch on.

Step 2

Choose the wording

Set the home label and separator, decide whether to show the current page, and pick the primary taxonomy.

Step 3

Place the shortcode

Add the “crawlwp_breadcrumbs” shortcode above the post title in your single post template, or anywhere you like.

In search results

Breadcrumbs are structured data too

Tick Include BreadcrumbList schema, and CrawlWP adds the trail to the JSON-LD graph on every page, alongside your organization, website, and article markup.

  • Desktop: Google may show your breadcrumb trail in place of the plain URL.
  • Mobile: Since January 2025, Google shows only your domain, not the trail.
  • Search Console: the breadcrumb report still tells you whether your markup is valid.

Questions

Breadcrumb questions

Answers to the questions people ask most about breadcrumbs in WordPress.

What are breadcrumbs?

They are a small trail of links, such as Home › Guides › WordPress SEO, that shows where a page sits on your site.

How do I add breadcrumbs to WordPress?

Tick Enable breadcrumbs in CrawlWP, then place the

shortcode where you want the trail to appear.

My theme already has breadcrumbs. Can I use just the schema?

Yes. Leave Enable breadcrumbs off and tick Include BreadcrumbList schema. You get the structured data without a second trail on the page.

Will breadcrumbs show in Google results?

On desktop, Google may show your trail in place of the URL when the markup is present. It decides when. On mobile, Google has shown only the domain since January 2025.

Do breadcrumbs help SEO?

They help search engines understand how your site is organized, and they add links to your category pages. They are not a direct ranking boost on their own.

Can I change the separator?

Yes. Use any character or HTML. The default is ›.

Do breadcrumbs work with custom post types?

Yes. The primary taxonomy setting decides which taxonomy builds the trail for post types without parent pages, so pick the one most of your content uses.

Are breadcrumbs free?

Yes. Breadcrumbs and BreadcrumbList schema are part of CrawlWP Lite, the free version.

Pricing

Straightforward pricing, every feature included

Standard

For 1 Site

$59

/ year

  • On-page SEO
  • Advanced Sitemaps
  • Improved Search Indexing
  • Auto-Indexing
  • Index Status Checker
  • SEO Insights Dashboard
  • SEO Email Reports
  • Premium Support

Pro

For 5 Sites

$159

/ year

  • On-page SEO
  • Advanced Sitemaps
  • Improved Search Indexing
  • Auto-Indexing
  • Index Status Checker
  • SEO Insights Dashboard
  • SEO Email Reports
  • Premium Support

Agency

For Unlimited Sites

$259

/ year

  • On-page SEO
  • Advanced Sitemaps
  • Improved Search Indexing
  • Auto-Indexing
  • Index Status Checker
  • SEO Insights Dashboard
  • SEO Email Reports
  • Premium Support

Standard

For 1 Site

$359

once

  • On-page SEO
  • Improved Search Indexing
  • Auto-Indexing
  • Index Status Checker
  • SEO Insights Dashboard
  • SEO Email Reports
  • Premium Support

Pro

For 5 Sites

$559

once

  • On-page SEO
  • Improved Search Indexing
  • Auto-Indexing
  • Index Status Checker
  • SEO Insights Dashboard
  • SEO Email Reports
  • Premium Support

Agency

For Unlimited Sites

$759

once

  • On-page SEO
  • Improved Search Indexing
  • Auto-Indexing
  • Index Status Checker
  • SEO Insights Dashboard
  • SEO Email Reports
  • Premium Support