In WordPress, breadcrumbs are a type of navigation element that helps users understand the structure of your website and their current location within it.
They are usually displayed as a series of links at the top of a page, separated by a delimiter such as a “>” symbol.
For example, if you have a website with a structure like “Home > Blog > Category > Post,” the breadcrumb trail for a particular post might look like this:
Home > Blog > Category > Post
Breadcrumbs provide a useful way for users to quickly navigate back to a higher level in the website hierarchy, and can also help search engines to understand the structure of your website and its content.
These are some code snippets to generate breadcrumbs schema without a plugin.
Table of Contents
Breadcrumbs Schema by SlimSEO
This is the breadcrumbs schema that SLIM SEO generates even when I am not displaying breadcrumbs anywhere on my site.
You will also have the option to generate the breadcrumbs schema without displaying breadcrumbs anywhere on your site.
Code to Generate Breadcrumbs Schema
This is what will generate the schema for the breadcrumbs. This will not add breadcrumbs to your site’s front end.
Home>> category>> Post
function get_breadcrumb_json_ld() {
$home_url = get_home_url();
$post_categories = get_the_category();
$first_category = $post_categories[0];
$category_url = get_category_link($first_category->term_id);
$post_title = get_the_title();
$post_url = get_the_permalink();
$json_ld = array(
'@context' => 'https://schema.org',
'@type' => 'BreadcrumbList',
'@name' => 'Breadcrumbs',
'itemListElement' => array(
array(
'@type' => 'ListItem',
'position' => 1,
'name' => 'Home',
'item' => array(
'@id' => $home_url,
),
),
array(
'@type' => 'ListItem',
'position' => 2,
'name' => $first_category->name,
'item' => array(
'@id' => $category_url,
),
),
array(
'@type' => 'ListItem',
'position' => 3,
'name' => $post_title,
'item' => array(
'@id' => $post_url,
),
),
),
);
return json_encode($json_ld, JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES);
}
This is limited to Home and category, similar to what SLIM SEO does
Home>> category>>
function get_breadcrumb_json_ld() {
$home_url = get_home_url();
$post_categories = get_the_category();
$first_category = $post_categories[0];
$category_url = get_category_link($first_category->term_id);
$post_title = get_the_title();
$post_url = get_the_permalink();
$json_ld = array(
'@context' => 'https://schema.org',
'@type' => 'BreadcrumbList',
'@name' => 'Breadcrumbs',
'itemListElement' => array(
array(
'@type' => 'ListItem',
'position' => 1,
'name' => 'Home',
'item' => array(
'@id' => $home_url,
),
),
array(
'@type' => 'ListItem',
'position' => 2,
'name' => $first_category->name,
'item' => array(
'@id' => $category_url,
),
),
),
);
return json_encode($json_ld, JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES);
}
This function will add the schema generated for the breadcrumbs to the footer in all posts.
function output_breadcrumb_json_ld() {
if ( is_single() ) {
$json_ld = get_breadcrumb_json_ld();
echo '<script type="application/ld+json">' . $json_ld . '</script>';
}
}
add_action('wp_footer', 'output_breadcrumb_json_ld');
Disclaimer
This is not the perfect solution to replace the schema generated by SEO Plugins
I haven’t checked how different SEO plugins accomplish this and if there are differences in the approach used by the developers.
You can play with these code snippets in a local environment and make adjustments to them.
More Code Snippets
There are more code snippets where this came from.
