Breadcrumb Navigation

Breadcrumb navigation is a form of a path-style navigation. There are three types of breadcrumbs:

1. Path Breadcrumbs: Dynamic breadcrumbs that reveal the path the user took to arrive at a given page.
2. Location Breadcrumbs: Static breadcrumbs that show a given website's hierarchy relative to where that website page is located.
3. Attribute Breadcrumbs: Breadcrumbs that provide information that categorizes the current website page.

The parent page of the Web page a user is visiting is displayed during breadcrumb navigation. The ">" symbol separates out the hierarchical search order from beginning to end and may look something like:

Home Page > Section Page > Subsection Page

Designers may opt to use other symbols (also known as glyphs), or even graphics.

While breadcrumb navigation is a useful technological tool, it is often duplicative in nature because the same computer functions can be performed using the Web browser's "Back" button during a Web search.