SlowlyBreadcrumbs
A trail of links showing where the current page sits in the site.
Breadcrumbs show where the current page sits in the site: home, then any parent pages or categories, then the page itself. The block is fully server-rendered. It reads the current request, a post, a term archive, an author page, a search, a 404, and builds the trail from WordPress's own hierarchy, with no front-end script involved.
What the trail contains depends on where you are: a hierarchical post or page walks up its parent pages; a post with a flat post type walks up the term hierarchy of whichever taxonomy you set, then adds the term and the post itself; term archives, author pages, search results, and date archives each get their own single crumb. On the front page the trail is just the Home crumb, or empty if that's switched off, since there's no parent above it to walk up to.
Adding one
- Select the section or container to hold it, typically near the top of a single post or page template.
- Open the inserter and search "breadcrumbs".
- Pick the block. It builds itself from whichever page it renders on; there's nothing to type.
Settings
In the breadcrumbs' own panel. Appearance lives in the shared design panel.
| Setting | What it does | Reach for it when |
|---|---|---|
| Show home / Home label | Whether the trail starts with a home crumb, and its text | Renaming "Home", or dropping it for a site with no meaningful homepage |
| Prefix | Static text before the trail, such as "You are here:" | The trail needs an introductory label |
| Separator | The character between crumbs | Matching the site's visual style (default is a forward slash) |
| Post taxonomy | Which taxonomy builds the trail for non-hierarchical post types | A custom post type organised by a taxonomy other than category |
| Show current page | Whether the last crumb, the page you're on, appears at all | A trail that should stop one level up |
| Link current page | Wraps the last crumb in a link instead of plain text | Rare; the WAI pattern recommends leaving the current page unlinked |
| Output BreadcrumbList schema | Appends a BreadcrumbList JSON-LD block after the trail | Almost always on; it's what search engines use to render breadcrumbs in results |
| Search results / 404 / Archive prefix labels | The text shown on search, not-found, and generic archive pages | Matching the site's voice on these specific page types |
| Item class | Extra class on every crumb <li> | Hooking into custom CSS beyond the design panel |
Styling
The shared design panel covers spacing, type, colour, and borders. The trail itself is a flex row that wraps; the prefix and separators sit at 70% and 60% opacity by default so they recede behind the crumb text, and the current-page crumb carries a slightly heavier weight. All of it is plain CSS, overridable from custom CSS.
Accessibility
The block follows the WAI-ARIA breadcrumb pattern: the wrapping element is a <nav aria-label="Breadcrumb">, the current page carries aria-current="page", and the separators between crumbs are marked aria-hidden="true" so a screen reader announces the linked crumbs without reading a slash between each one.