Google Search Results Now Feature a 'Breadcrumb' Display

The general layout of a search results page seems to have stayed pretty much the same since Google cracked it about a decade ago. At the time, everyone realized that Google had the right idea and most search engines today have a very similar way of showing the results. But, despite looking very similar, the design has evolved over time, small changes adding up to make for a much better experience. Now Google is introducing yet another small change that enhances the functionality in a subtle way, by modifying the way the web addresses are displayed, showing up in green in the results.

“Today we're rolling out an improvement that replaces the URL in some search results with a hierarchy showing the precise location of the page on the website. The new display provides valuable context and new navigation options. The changes are rolling out now and should be available globally in the next few days,” Harvey Jones and Daniel Rocha, software engineers in the Result UI Team, wrote.

You hardly realize it, but the page address is a huge factor in choosing a result which you believe is relevant. Having the exact URL is good for determining if the result comes from a site you're familiar with and you trust, but for navigational information it isn't always very useful. With the new “breadcrumbs” method which Google introduced, you will not only know the address of the site, but also where in the site's hierarchy the page resides an important piece of information.

The feature is being introduced gradually and it should be available for everyone within days. But since many sites don't have a very good site architecture and don't use “breadcrumbs” as a navigational tool, most results will still show the old style URL address information. Google is working on increasing the number of results which take advantage of the new feature and is also encouraging webmasters to create cleaner and better navigational layouts for their sites.