Breadcrumbs are a UX feature you're pretending is a linking strategy.

Breadcrumbs are a UX feature you're pretending is a linking strategy.

Controversial but: breadcrumbs pass thin, boilerplate, top-level-only equity and people treat them like they're doing real internal-linking work. They link upward to category and home — pages already drowning in links — and never sideways to the related pages that would actually build topical depth. Useful for users and rich results, near-useless for relevance distribution.

The fix: keep breadcrumbs for navigation and schema, but don't count them in your linking strategy. Your real internal-linking budget lives in contextual body links between peers.

Is your "internal linking plan" mostly breadcrumbs and a menu? If so, you don't have one. Convince me otherwise.