Breadcrumbs with
, or
?

Question

Does it matter whether my microdata breadcrumb trail starts and ends with <div>, <span> or <li>? Consider <div> tag first:

<div><span itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb">
  <a href="http://www.example.com/dresses" itemprop="url">
    <span itemprop="title">Dresses</span>
  </a></span> » 
</div>

And now what if I replace it with <li> or <span> tags? What difference it would make?

I saw this <li> in website's breadcrumbs and it displayed without showing bullet points.

UPDATE: Look what I just found:

<span itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb">
<a href="http://www.example.com/" itemprop="url">
<span itemprop="title">Dresses</span>
</a>
</span> >> 
<span itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb">
<span a href="http://www.example.com/" itemprop="url"></span>
<span itemprop="title">Last Page**</span>
</a>
</span>

Normally last page is not displayed in search results unless it has URL propery. However I was able to make it display in a non-hyperlinked way in green. How is that looked upon by Google?

Shame you didn't mention <nav> with <ul> because that's more relevant than all of the ones mentioned ;) I recommend you research about span, p, a, div, section, main, nav, ul and so on. — Simon Hayter, Mar 28 '14 at 18:32
Is it same as SPAN and DIV when it comes to breadcrumbs or it boosts your rankings too? ;) — Boris_yo, Mar 28 '14 at 18:36
Span, DIV has nothing to do with rankings... Also microdata does not directly improve rankings. — Simon Hayter, Mar 28 '14 at 18:37
That's a whole different question, and since you're using breadcrumbs, what is the point of having that without the url property? — riseagainst, Mar 28 '14 at 18:41
@guisasso Seems there is no point of having trail without URL but I just discovered how you can still have it without URL. — Boris_yo, Mar 28 '14 at 18:43
@Boris_yo It's because the link is set incorrectly within the span tag — riseagainst, Mar 28 '14 at 18:47

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 28 '14 at 20:43

If the code is validated, no.

The following is:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb">
    <a href="http://www.example.com/" itemprop="url">
         <span itemprop="title">Dresses</span>
    </a>
</div>

Gets validated with any of those tags (<span>, <li>, <div>) and many more.

Try it out at http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets.

P.S.: Your first <div> tag is closed on your example, which makes it not functional.

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:33

For the Microdata, it does not matter if you use div, span or li.

Using this is invalid, of course (span can’t have the attributes a and href):

<span a href="http://www.example.com/" itemprop="url"></span>

If you want to provide a URL without having a clickable/visible link, use the link element (which can be used in the body if used for Microdata):

<link itemprop="url" href="http://www.example.com/" />

Breadcrumbs with , or ?

2 Answers2

Breadcrumbs with
, or
?