How to Add WordPress SEO Breadcrumbs (Rank Math, Yoast, Themes)

How do you add WordPress SEO breadcrumbs? Breadcrumbs are the small trail of links at the top of a post, like Home > Tutorials > WordPress, that show readers where they are and help search engines understand your site structure. When we added them to QuickOnlineTips years ago, Google started showing our category trail in search results. Here is how to add WordPress SEO breadcrumbs in 2026, and what changed in Google.

Quick answer: Turn on breadcrumbs in your SEO plugin (Rank Math: General Settings > Breadcrumbs; Yoast: Settings > Advanced > Breadcrumbs) or your theme (Kadence, Astra and others have a breadcrumb option), then show them above post titles with the plugin’s shortcode, block or theme setting. The plugin also adds BreadcrumbList schema. Test with Google’s Rich Results Test.

Why add breadcrumbs?

• Readers can jump up to the category or home page in one click.
• They add useful internal links on every post.
• BreadcrumbList structured data tells Google how your pages fit together.
• On desktop, Google can show a breadcrumb trail instead of a long URL in results.

What changed in Google search

In early 2025 Google stopped showing breadcrumb trails in mobile search results, showing just the site name and domain instead, because the trail was often cut off on small screens. Breadcrumbs still appear on desktop results, and the structured data is still used to understand your site. So breadcrumbs remain worth adding.

How to add breadcrumbs with Rank Math

1. Go to Rank Math > General Settings > Breadcrumbs and turn on Enable breadcrumbs function.
2. Choose the separator, home label and whether to show the post title and category.
3. Display them using your theme’s breadcrumb option, the Breadcrumbs block, or the shortcode .

How to add breadcrumbs with Yoast SEO

1. Go to Yoast SEO > Settings > Advanced > Breadcrumbs and enable them.
2. Set the separator and anchor text, and choose which taxonomy to show for posts (usually Categories).
3. Add the Yoast Breadcrumbs block, or place this in your theme template:

<?php if ( function_exists( 'yoast_breadcrumb' ) ) {
  yoast_breadcrumb( '<p id="breadcrumbs">', '</p>' );
} ?>

Theme breadcrumbs

Many themes include breadcrumbs. In Kadence, go to Customize > General > Breadcrumbs and choose which pages show them. If your SEO plugin also outputs breadcrumbs, use only one so the schema is not duplicated.

Breadcrumb best practices

• Keep a clean category structure; one main category per post works best. If tags and categories overlap, see how to convert categories to tags.
• Use short category names so trails stay readable.
• Place breadcrumbs above the post title.
• Test a few URLs in Google’s Rich Results Test and check Search Console’s Breadcrumbs report.
• Also set your preferred site name in Google search, which now shows on mobile instead of breadcrumbs.

Choosing an SEO plugin? Compare the best WordPress SEO plugins.

FAQ

Do breadcrumbs help SEO?

They help with internal linking, user navigation and structured data. They are not a big ranking factor on their own.

Why are my breadcrumbs not showing in Google?

Google no longer shows them on mobile, and on desktop it decides when to display them. Check that your schema is valid.

Should breadcrumbs include the post title?

It is optional. Many sites leave it out since the title is right below.

Do you use breadcrumbs on your site? Tell us in the comments.