"Add breadcrumbs, they're a ranking factor."

"Add breadcrumbs, they're a ranking factor."

They're not. They're a navigation and SERP-display thing. Useful, just not for the reason quoted.

The honest breadcrumb checklist:

— Match the breadcrumb path to your actual URL and category structure. A breadcrumb that lies about the hierarchy is worse than none.
— Add BreadcrumbList structured data so Google can show the path instead of the raw URL in results. That's the real win — display, not rank.
— Make the last crumb the current page, unlinked. Linking a page to itself is pointless and slightly broken.
— Keep it shallow. Home > Category > Page. If you need five levels, your information architecture is the problem, not the breadcrumb.
— Don't keyword-stuff the crumbs. They mirror real categories, full stop.

That's it. (Breadcrumbs help users not get lost and help Google render a tidier URL line. Both good. Neither is the "ranking signal" the listicle promised. The listicle was padding its own item count.)