SSB-C - Single Standard for Breadcrumbs

Definitions

The SSB-C standard defines requirements for the semantics, accessibility, and logic of breadcrumbs.

Structure and Semantics

Breadcrumbs should use <nav> to denote the navigation block, <ol> for an ordered list, and <li> for each breadcrumb item:

<nav class="breadcrumbs">
  <ol class="breadcrumbs__list">
    <li class="breadcrumbs__item">
      <a href="/" class="breadcrumbs__link">Home</a>
    </li>
    <li class="breadcrumbs__item">
      <a href="/category" class="breadcrumbs__link">Category</a>
    </li>
    <li class="breadcrumbs__item breadcrumbs__item--current">
      Current page title
    </li>
  </ol>
</nav>

Accessibility

The last item in the list indicates the current page, it should not be a link, and aria-current="page" should be added to improve accessibility:

<li class="breadcrumbs__item breadcrumbs__item--current" aria-current="page">
  Current page title
</li>

Interactivity and Visual Feedback

The <li> elements contain basic styles that are inherited by the <a> links, and white-space: nowrap; is used to prevent text wrapping:

.breadcrumbs__item {
  font-size: 14px;
  color: #6c757d;
  white-space: nowrap;
}

.breadcrumbs__link {
  color: #007bff;
  text-decoration: none;
}

.breadcrumbs__item--current {
  font-weight: bold;
  color: #343a40;
}

For convenience on mobile devices, it’s a good idea to add a horizontal scrollbar:

.breadcrumbs {
  overflow-inline: auto;
  overflow-block: hidden;
}

.breadcrumbs__list {
  display: flex;
}

Schema.org microdata helps search engines correctly identify the content on the page:

<nav class="breadcrumbs">
  <ol class="breadcrumbs__list" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/BreadcrumbList">
    <li class="breadcrumbs__item" itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem">
      <a itemprop="item" href="/">
        <span itemprop="name">Home</span>
      </a>
      <meta itemprop="position" content="1" />
    </li>
    <li class="breadcrumbs__item" itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem">
      <a itemprop="item" href="/category">
        <span itemprop="name">Category</span>
      </a>
      <meta itemprop="position" content="2" />
    </li>
    <li class="breadcrumbs__item breadcrumbs__item--current" itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem" aria-current="page">
      <span itemprop="name">Current page title</span>
      <meta itemprop="position" content="3" />
    </li>
  </ol>
</nav>