Using breadcrumbs for page navigation is a great way to let your visitors know where they are and where they came from as they navigate your website; it gives them an idea of your site’s page hierarchy. Plus, did you know that it is also one way to optimize your site for search engines as well?

Here’s a pretty neat way of adding breadcrumbs to your WordPress site without using any plugin. Just copy and then paste the following code below into your functions.php file.

function the_breadcrumb() {
echo '<ul id="crumbs">';
if (!is_home()) {
echo '<li><a href="';
echo get_option('home');
echo '">';
echo 'Home';
echo "</a></li>";
if (is_category() || is_single()) {
echo '<li>';
the_category(' </li><li> ');
if (is_single()) {
echo "</li><li>";
the_title();
echo '</li>';
}
} elseif (is_page()) {
echo '<li>';
echo the_title();
echo '</li>';
}
}
elseif (is_tag()) {single_tag_title();}
elseif (is_day()) {echo"<li>Archive for "; the_time('F jS, Y'); echo'</li>';}
elseif (is_month()) {echo"<li>Archive for "; the_time('F, Y'); echo'</li>';}
elseif (is_year()) {echo"<li>Archive for "; the_time('Y'); echo'</li>';}
elseif (is_author()) {echo"<li>Author Archive"; echo'</li>';}
elseif (isset($_GET['paged']) && !empty($_GET['paged']))
{echo "<li>Blog Archives"; echo'</li>';}
elseif (is_search()) {echo"<li>Search Results"; echo'</li>';}
echo '</ul>';
}    

And then copy and paste this one anywhere in your theme files to display the breadcrumbs.

<?php the_breadcrumb(); ?>

That’s it. You’re done!

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