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Breadcrumb trail sometimes doesn't show parent category link
Question
My store breadcrumb trail only shows the parent category for the current subcategory or product occasionally. Other times, it does not show this. Why is this?
Answer
This is by design. The breadcrumb trail is not intended as a direct representation of where a particular product or subcategory is in the store hierarchy. Instead, it is a representation of the recent steps taken to reach that product or subcategory.
In fact, given the flexible design of the CactuShop database that allows subcategories to belong to any number of parent categories, a breadcrumb trail that shows a product or subcategory's parent, grandparent and so on is impossible. There could be several of each. How should the system decide which parent to display?
It is simply not possible to produce a concise breadcrumb trail showing the folder hierarchy when it is possible to have subcategories with multiple parents, each of which could have multiple parents itself, and so on. A breadcrumb trail showing the full hierarchy would require that each category only have one parent, and this is highly restrictive for most stores.
However, if you navigate through the categories and subcategories to reach an item, you will see a clear breadcrumb trail - in this case, the store knows which way you navigated to the product and hence which parent and grandparent to display. But if you follow a link to an item from the 'front page specials', search results or related products links, the breadcrumb trail reflects this.