Want to get breadcrumbs of your website to show up in Google search snippets? It can be quite a daunting task. Google has a mind of its own. You’ll need a well defined structure, a reasonably large content oriented site and well marked-up breadcrumbs. I was using the Breadcrumb NavXT WordPress Plugin on one of the sites. And I wanted to make sure that the breadcrumb mark-up is compatible with Schema.Org microdata and Google. For that you’ll need to modify the Breadcrumb NavXT templates in the plugin settings. Here’s the complete list (as per the current plugin version 5.7.1).
Currently there are four tabs in the plugin settings.
We’ll go one tab at a time and modify the templates.
The “General” Tab
Paged Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">Page %htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Home Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Home Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span property="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Blog Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a property="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Blog Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
The “Post Types” Tab
Post Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Post Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Page Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Page Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Attachment Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Attachment Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
The “Taxonomies” Tab
Category Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to the %title% category archives." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Category Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Tag Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to the %title% tag archives." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Tag Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Post Format Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to %title% archives." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Post Format Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
The “Miscellaneous” Tab
Author Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">Articles by: <a title="Go to the first page of posts by %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%">%htitle%</a>
Author Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">Articles by: %htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Date Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to the %title% archives." href="%link%" class="%type%"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span></a><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Date Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Search Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">Search results for '<a itemprop="item" itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" title="Go to the first page of search results for %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%">%htitle%</a>'</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
Search Template (Unlinked)
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">Search results for '%htitle%'</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
404 Template
<span itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem"><span itemprop="name">%htitle%</span><meta itemprop="position" content="%position%"></span>
It will take time for Google to re-index the site. And like I said, there’s no guarantees that the breadcrumbs will start appearing at all. But this template is your best bet if you’ve tried everything else.