Breadcrumbs

A breadcrumb trail shows where a page sits in the site, such as Home › Services › Water › Billing, just below the header. The theme builds it from the site’s real structure: parent pages, the blog, categories and custom post types. It is off until you turn it on.

When to use it

• Sites with depth: departments, services with sub-pages, a large blog, or record types from Promptless CPT Pages.
• Not needed on small sites where every page is in the main menu.

How to turn it on

1. Go to Appearance → Customize → Breadcrumbs.
2. Tick Enable Breadcrumbs. The other options appear.
3. Untick any kind of page that should not show the trail.
4. Select Publish.

Options

Option	What it does	Default
Enable Breadcrumbs	Turns the trail on.	Off
Breadcrumbs Theme	Inherit (Content Theme), Light or Dark. Inherit matches the page content’s setting.	Inherit (Content Theme)
Home Label	The text of the first link.	Home
Show on pages	Pages, with their parent pages.	On
Show on blog posts	Posts.	On
Show on custom post type singles	Single records of any other post type.	On
Show on archives (blog, categories, custom post types)	The blog page, category, tag, date, author and post type archives.	On
Show on search results	The search results page.	On
Show on the 404 page	The page-not-found page.	On
Include category in blog post trails	Adds the post’s category, with its parent categories, between the blog and the post.	On
Output BreadcrumbList structured data	Adds the trail to the page for search engines.	On

What the trail contains

Page	Trail
Page	Home › parent pages › page
Blog post	Home › blog page › category › post
Custom post type item	Home › post type name › parent items › item
Category or tag	Home › blog page › parent categories › category
Custom taxonomy term	Home › post type name › parent terms › term
Search results	Home › Search results for ”…”
404	Home › Page not found

• The blog page appears only when Settings → Reading uses a static page for posts.
• For the category, the theme uses the primary category set in Yoast SEO or Rank Math when there is one, otherwise the first category. The site’s default category (Uncategorized unless you changed it) is never shown.
• A post type’s name links to its archive only if the post type has one.
• The last item, the current page, is plain text.
• On long trails, only Home, … and the last three items are shown.

When it does not show

• On the front page.
• On WooCommerce shop, product and product category pages, which keep WooCommerce’s own breadcrumb.
• On a page where the trail would be only Home.
• On a page set to hide it (below).

A page that shows breadcrumbs also keeps the floating header in its own band instead of over the first section; see Header.

How to hide it on one page

With breadcrumbs enabled, every page, post and public post type has a Breadcrumbs box in the editor’s sidebar. Choose Hide on this page instead of Default (follow theme settings) and update the page. Use it for landing pages that open with a full-width hero.

Structured data

The trail is also added to the page as BreadcrumbList structured data, always with the full trail even when the visible one is shortened. When Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework or Slim SEO is active, the theme leaves this out, because those plugins add their own.

Limits and common problems

• No trail on a page. Check the list under “When it does not show”, the page’s Breadcrumbs box, and the Show on option for that kind of page.
• The Breadcrumbs box is missing from the editor. It appears only while Enable Breadcrumbs is on.
• The connector cannot set breadcrumbs. These settings are only in the Customizer.

Available since Promptless Theme 1.2.8.

Related pages

• Header — Choose a header layout including the floating pill, float it over the first section, set Light or Dark, sticky and border, add light and dark logos, and set where the menu collapses.
• Archives — How the Promptless theme shows the blog, category, tag and custom post type archives as cards, and how to show or hide the date and author and change the image shape.
• Customizer Settings — Every setting the Promptless theme adds to Appearance → Customize, with its choices, its default, its stored key, and whether the Promptless WP connector can change it.
• SEO Panel & Schema — The editor's SEO panel, the structured data (schema.org JSON-LD) Promptless WP builds from your sections, and how to check it, change the page type and add review data.