BreadcrumbList schema

What it does for AI citation

It tells a model where a page sits, which is context it otherwise has to infer from the URL. Cheap to add, and it makes a deep page legible as part of a structure rather than an orphan.

A working example

Paste this into a <script type="application/ld+json"> tag in your page head and replace the values. It is valid as written.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
  "itemListElement": [
    { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://example.com" },
    { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Guides", "item": "https://example.com/guides" },
    { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Schema markup" }
  ]
}

What actually goes wrong

These are the errors that show up repeatedly on real sites, in rough order of how often we see them.

• Including item on the final element. The current page should not link to itself.
• position numbering that does not start at 1 or skips values.
• Breadcrumbs in the markup that do not match the ones rendered on the page.

Markup is necessary, not sufficient

Valid BreadcrumbList does not buy you a citation. It makes your page legible, which is the precondition. Whether an assistant names you when a buyer asks also turns on your content, how current the page is, and who else on the web corroborates you. Any tool that tells you markup alone will get you cited is overselling.

Other types