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Does the Structured Data Testing Tool have a history of showing different RDF breadcrumb snippets in HTML view compared with URL view?

When using URL view for my pages, e.g., www.springboardseo.com/resources/what-is/robots-txt.html the snippets show as: www.springboardseo.com › Resources › Glossary › R :however,

when using HTML view, pasting the entire page's html, the snippets display properly, as: www.example.com › Resources › Glossary › R › Robots.txt

The markup I have on-page is:

<div xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#">
   <span typeof="v:Breadcrumb">
     <a href="http://www.springboardseo.com/" rel="v:url" property="v:title">
      Home
    </a> ›
   </span>
   <span typeof="v:Breadcrumb">
    <a href="http://www.springboardseo.com/resources/" rel="v:url" property="v:title">
      Resources
    </a> ›
   </span>
   <span typeof="v:Breadcrumb">
      <a href="http://www.springboardseo.com/resources/glossary/" rel="v:url" property="v:title">
        Glossary
    </a> ›  
   </span>
   <span typeof="v:Breadcrumb">
      <a href="http://www.springboardseo.com/resources/glossary/r.html" rel="v:url" property="v:title">
        R
    </a> ›  
   </span>
   <span typeof="v:Breadcrumb" class="breadcrumbDest">
      <a href="http://www.springboardseo.com/resources/what-is/robots-txt.html" rel="v:url" property="v:title">
        Robots.txt
    </a>
   </span>
</div>
Mattypants
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about SEO – John Conde Apr 19 '14 at 19:06
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    It's primarily about user-friendly Google snippets, and snippets don't really improve rankings. That being said, forward thinking SEOs would be interested in structured markup, just as they would content strategy, web analytics, semantic/stuctured markup, social media, etc. I don't quite understand your logic, John. I think I tagged the question properly, but feel free to suggest tags to add that will expedite helpful responses. – Mattypants Apr 20 '14 at 01:51

1 Answers1

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My guess would be that in HTML mode, it's looking purely at what the code says.

That's quite different from the way it interprets information in the SERPS.

Most of it will be based on the users query.

For example, if the user searched for 'robots.txt' they would see Robots.txt in the page title.

Therefore, the breadcrumbs don't need to include the users query, as it's much better for them to be shown in the actual title within the SERPS.

However, if they searched for a related term that happened to be mentioned on this page, they might show the robots.txt part of the breadcrumbs if the title could be phrased in a more relevant way to match their query.

In simple terms, if they're searching specifically for robots.txt, Google show it in the title, if they're searching for something similar, but there's a more appropriate title available, they'll show robots.txt in the breadcrumbs.

Sam Barnes
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