Breadcrumbs and SEO V.S URL with Keywords for SEO

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I can't seem to find a solid answer on this anywhere...

Does anybody know if adding breadcrumbs will take away from the benefit of having keywords in your URL?

When you add breadcrumbs google displays the breadcrumb in the SERPS but doesn't show your URL that usually has keywords in it.

So... besides the lower bounce rate effect breadcrumbs can have, are we loosing out on keywords?
#breadcrumbs #keywords #seo #url
  • Profile picture of the author arjupraja7
    As per I think URL with keywords increase you ranking and Bounce Rate.
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    • Profile picture of the author webmonopoly
      Originally Posted by arjupraja7 View Post

      As per I think URL with keywords increase you ranking and Bounce Rate.
      I dont understand. Are you saying that you think having a URL with keywords increases your rankings, but also increases bounce rate?
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  • Profile picture of the author nina789
    I have another doubt: can we keep breadcrumbs non-clickable?
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Originally Posted by arjupraja7 View Post

    As per I think URL with keywords increase you ranking and Bounce Rate.
    Originally Posted by webmonopoly View Post

    I dont understand. Are you saying that you think having a URL with keywords increases your rankings, but also increases bounce rate?
    No. What he is actually saying is he has no idea what he is talking about and just wants to make a post so that people see his signature link. Although, after that comment, he is probably chasing away more business than he is getting.

    As for your question, usually the breadcrumbs contain keywords too, so it is not something I would worry about. Also, the keywords are still in the URL, so they are not being lost.

    It sounds like what you are really worried about is it impacting your CTR from the SERP. Honestly, I don't think all that many people look at a URL before clicking on a search result.

    Personally, unless you have a really big site, I'm not a huge fan of breadcrumbs, unless they are unclickable links on the page. Every link on a page is making the rest of the links weaker. I don't like wasting links, and to me, breadcrumbs are usually wasted links on the page. There are some exceptions and a little bit of a trade-off maybe with the user experience, but most of the time anything handled in breadcrumbs is taken care of with your navigation menu.
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    • Profile picture of the author webmonopoly
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      No. What he is actually saying is he has no idea what he is talking about and just wants to make a post so that people see his signature link. Although, after that comment, he is probably chasing away more business than he is getting.

      As for your question, usually the breadcrumbs contain keywords too, so it is not something I would worry about. Also, the keywords are still in the URL, so they are not being lost.

      It sounds like what you are really worried about is it impacting your CTR from the SERP. Honestly, I don't think all that many people look at a URL before clicking on a search result.

      Personally, unless you have a really big site, I'm not a huge fan of breadcrumbs, unless they are unclickable links on the page. Every link on a page is making the rest of the links weaker. I don't like wasting links, and to me, breadcrumbs are usually wasted links on the page. There are some exceptions and a little bit of a trade-off maybe with the user experience, but most of the time anything handled in breadcrumbs is taken care of with your navigation menu.
      Thanks for your excellent response. I'm really beginning to think the warrior forum has gone down hill quite a bit.

      I used to post on here a few years back and would get plenty of input, but barely anything anymore.

      So what your saying is the keywords in the url are still taken into account by google even if they are not being displayed on the SERP?

      I go after long tail searches and my urls used to go bold when the keywords were searched for. But of course not anymore since i implemented breadcrumbs a few weeks back.

      As for the link juice issue, for me its not a big problem and i think I actually like the fact that it will spread the link power through my other posts.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dr los3
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      No. What he is actually saying is he has no idea what he is talking about and just wants to make a post so that people see his signature link. Although, after that comment, he is probably chasing away more business than he is getting.

      As for your question, usually the breadcrumbs contain keywords too, so it is not something I would worry about. Also, the keywords are still in the URL, so they are not being lost.

      It sounds like what you are really worried about is it impacting your CTR from the SERP. Honestly, I don't think all that many people look at a URL before clicking on a search result.

      Personally, unless you have a really big site, I'm not a huge fan of breadcrumbs, unless they are unclickable links on the page. Every link on a page is making the rest of the links weaker. I don't like wasting links, and to me, breadcrumbs are usually wasted links on the page. There are some exceptions and a little bit of a trade-off maybe with the user experience, but most of the time anything handled in breadcrumbs is taken care of with your navigation menu.
      YO. This is gold. They do take some link juice.
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  • Profile picture of the author michaelkoehler92
    No even though you have breadcrumbs enabled it will have the same effect as Urls. I do use it and never faced any issues.

    And yes every normal user only looks into the Title of the search result and not into the url so you wont have any issues with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author luciesmazanska
    In my experience, Google does not ranking lower longer URLs. I know Rand published once a correlation study that shows this, but I think use of Breadcrumbs is more beneficial for Seo and got good rankings.
    I think you should keep your website architecture solid, following the correct path and not removing one level. So, keep your URLs short, but keep your breadcrumbs like your website flow.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
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    Originally Posted by webmonopoly View Post

    I can't seem to find a solid answer on this anywhere...

    Does anybody know if adding breadcrumbs will take away from the benefit of having keywords in your URL?

    When you add breadcrumbs google displays the breadcrumb in the SERPS but doesn't show your URL that usually has keywords in it.

    So... besides the lower bounce rate effect breadcrumbs can have, are we loosing out on keywords?



    Ideally the site would be structured with directories so the URL would match the breadcrumb (site structure).

    It's possible to have different breadcrumbs compared to the URL, it's HTML, do whatever you want. Neither one is written in stone.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dr los3
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Ideally the site would be structured with directories so the URL would match the breadcrumb (site structure).

      It's possible to have different breadcrumbs compared to the URL, it's HTML, do whatever you want. Neither one is written in stone.
      Agreed.

      Yukon, are you immortal? You've been here since i started my seo life. 68 years ago.

      Now i watched your snap chat stories too. XD
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  • Profile picture of the author anhvu
    Originally Posted by webmonopoly View Post

    I can't seem to find a solid answer on this anywhere...

    Does anybody know if adding breadcrumbs will take away from the benefit of having keywords in your URL?

    When you add breadcrumbs google displays the breadcrumb in the SERPS but doesn't show your URL that usually has keywords in it.

    So... besides the lower bounce rate effect breadcrumbs can have, are we loosing out on keywords?

    You should consider carefully because the keyword in URL is one of important on-page SEO factors. let's look at what Brian said about it: backlinko.com/on-page-seo

    - Anhvu
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    • Profile picture of the author webmonopoly
      Originally Posted by anhvu View Post

      You should consider carefully because the keyword in URL is one of important on-page SEO factors. let's look at what Brian said about it: backlinko.com/on-page-seo

      - Anhvu
      My URL's are optimised. What I'm saying is when you use breadcrumbs your URL is replaced with the breadcrumb trail in google SERPS. So is google still taking into account your URL keywords or is google now ignoring them?
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by webmonopoly View Post

        My URL's are optimised. What I'm saying is when you use breadcrumbs your URL is replaced with the breadcrumb trail in google SERPS. So is google still taking into account your URL keywords or is google now ignoring them?

        There is no reason to believe they are ignoring them. It is just how they display the SERPs.
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        • Profile picture of the author webmonopoly
          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          There is no reason to believe they are ignoring them. It is just how they display the SERPs.
          That's what I'm hoping. They bold the keywords in the URL but with breadcrumbs nothing gets bolded, so who knows.

          It may affect CTR as well...
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  • Profile picture of the author Dr los3
    At the end of the day what you're trying to understand is a tactic.

    Is this really winning the war or is it just a pointless battle that won't really do much of anything for your overall performance and might even be hindering your success because you're too busy focusing on the unimportant.

    If your soul is still restless i would just look at what the top websites are doing.

    Apple.com uses breadcrumbs at the bottom of their site. Most of their serps have breadcrumbs.

    Amazon does the same.

    Bruce clay does the same

    To save you from any more worry and frustration i would do the same.
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Keywords in the URL have no affect on SEO - at least with Google. That is what the EMD update was all about. If you are worrying about such insignificant things, you already must have amazing optimized content and an incredible number of backlinks and have nothing else to do.
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