Google has ended FAQ rich results for every site, but the answers behind them still earn their place

The note that ended a feature

On 8 May 2026 a short notice appeared at the top of Google's FAQ structured data documentation. It said the rich result had stopped appearing the day before, that the search appearance filter, the Search Console report and Rich Results Test support would follow in June, and that the Search Console API would drop the FAQ rich result in August ^[2][3]. There was no blog post and no explanation ^[3].

FAQ rich results are no longer appearing in Google Search. We will be dropping the FAQ search appearance, rich result report, and support in the Rich results test in June 2026. To allow time for adjusting your API calls, support for the FAQ rich result in the Search Console API will be removed in August 2026. ^[2]

Google's own changelog for Search Central records the same sequence in two lines. The entry for 8 May 2026 reads: "Deprecating the FAQ rich result feature: This feature will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026." The entry for 15 June 2026 reads: "Removing documentation for the FAQ rich result feature: The FAQ rich result feature is no longer shown in Google Search results." ^[1]

The list of structured data features that Google Search supports, the page known as the search gallery, currently names twenty-five feature types, from Article and Breadcrumb through Local business to Video. Neither FAQ nor How-to is among them ^[9].

For most local businesses the practical loss happened long before May 2026, because the rich result had been withheld from all but a small group of authoritative sites since 2023 ^[4][5]. What changed this year is that the last exceptions closed, the reporting disappeared, and the reason many agencies gave for selling FAQ markup stopped existing on paper as well as in practice.

What Google said, and when

The record is worth setting out in order, because much of the advice circulating online mixes up the stages.

On 8 August 2023 Google announced that FAQ rich results would "only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites", that for every other site the display would no longer be shown regularly, and that the choice of qualifying sites was automated ^[4]. The same announcement limited How-to rich results to desktop ^[4]. Google added that there was no reason to remove the markup: "Structured data that's not being used does not cause problems for Search, but also has no visible effects in Google Search." ^[4]

On 13 September 2023 Google extended the How-to change to desktop, which deprecated that result type entirely, and said its search appearance, report and Rich Results Test support would be dropped within thirty days ^[5]. Search Engine Land reported that the FAQ reduction for ordinary sites began the same day, with tracking tools showing a sharp fall in how often the display appeared ^[5].

In June 2025 Google retired seven more displays at once: book actions, course info, claim review, estimated salary, learning video, special announcement and vehicle listing. Its stated reason was that "analysis shows that they're not commonly used in Search" and that the displays "are no longer providing significant additional value for users" ^[7]. The changelog records the banners going up on 12 June 2025 and the documentation coming down on 9 September 2025, with the practice problem type following between November 2025 and January 2026 ^[1].

Then the FAQ notice of 8 May 2026, the documentation removal of 15 June 2026, and the scheduled end of API support in August 2026 ^[1][2]. Search Engine Journal noted that this deprecation appears to end eligibility for the government and health sites that had kept the display since 2023 ^[3]. As of the date of this article, every stage Google announced has passed.

One correction to the shorthand that has circulated since May. Google did not say that FAQPage markup is invalid, penalised or harmful. It said the display is gone. Search Engine Journal made the same point: the markup will not cause problems and FAQPage remains a valid schema.org type ^[3]. Schema.org still defines FAQPage as "a WebPage presenting one or more 'Frequently asked questions'" ^[15].

What the markup did, and what it never did

Structured data, in Google's own description, is "a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content" ^[8]. Google uses it "to understand the content of the page, as well as to gather information about the web and the world in general" ^[8]. Some types are also eligible for a rich result, the richer appearance in the results page ^[9]. FAQPage was one of those types: the markup told Google which questions and answers were on the page, and for a period Google chose to show them under the listing.

Two things the markup never did are worth stating plainly.

First, it never guaranteed the display. Google's general structured data guidelines warn that "Google does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly according to the Rich Results Test" ^[13]. Second, it never affected ranking. The same guidelines explain that even a structured data manual action "means that a page loses eligibility for appearance as a rich result; it doesn't affect how the page ranks in Google web search" ^[13]. If a penalty for bad markup does not touch ranking, correct markup was not lifting it either. The rich result was a presentation layer on a position the page had already earned.

The guidelines also set limits that many implementations ignored. "Don't mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page" and "Don't mark up irrelevant or misleading content" are both explicit rules ^[13]. Search Engine Land's Jenn Mathews, reviewing the feature's history in October 2025, wrote that Google had clarified FAQPage markup "should never be used for advertising or promotional purposes", and that she, like many practitioners, had added it to marketing pages as a supposed best practice and now thought that habit should end ^[6].

So the honest description of what a local business lost in May 2026 is narrow: an expandable display that most of them had not received since September 2023, attached to markup that never influenced where the page ranked.

What this means for a local business

The changes are mostly about expectations and spending rather than code. Taken in order of how often the problem comes up in practice:

1. Stop paying for the rich result. Any proposal that lists FAQ schema as a way to win extra space on the results page is describing a feature Google has withdrawn ^[1][2]. Ask what else the fee covers. If the answer is nothing, the fee has no deliverable.
2. Stop adding FAQPage markup for Google's benefit. There is no Google Search feature left for it to trigger ^[9], and Google's guidance on its AI features states that "there's also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add" to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode ^[10]. Markup added in the hope of a display, or of an AI advantage Google has not described, is effort spent on a hypothesis.
3. Audit what plugins are generating. SEO plugins and page builders still emit FAQPage markup from their FAQ blocks. Yoast's documentation for its FAQ block states that the plugin "automatically adds valid FAQ Schema markup to your content" and, on the same page, that Google retired the FAQ rich result in May 2026 so the expandable dropdown "no longer appears for any site" ^[14]. Google says leaving such markup in place is harmless ^[4]. The exception is markup that breaks Google's content rules: questions not visible on the page, or promotional copy dressed as a question ^[13].
4. Read the Search Console change correctly. The FAQ search appearance, rich result report and API support were all scheduled for removal between June and August 2026 ^[2][3]. A report that has gone quiet or vanished is that withdrawal, not a fault on the site. The Search appearance dimension in the Performance report still exists for the feature types Google continues to support ^[16].
5. Move the structured data budget to types that still describe the business. Google's search gallery still lists Local business among the supported features ^[9], and the LocalBusiness documentation describes the knowledge panel that can appear when people search for a business on Search or Maps, carrying details such as opening hours ^[12]. That markup states who the business is, where it is and what it does, which is the information every discovery system needs first.

I built my own clinic's website in 2026 without an agency and on a small budget, and I have some sympathy for the owner who ticked the FAQ box because the plugin offered it. The box was cheap. The agency retainer that listed the same box as a deliverable was not, and that is the line to strike out.

Why the answers are worth more than the feature was

The mistake that follows a withdrawal like this is to delete the content along with the feature. The two should be separated.

The questions a local business gets asked, what it costs, how long it takes, whether a referral is needed, whether there is parking, whether a treatment suits a particular condition, are the material that decides whether an enquiry happens. They do not stop being asked because Google stopped showing a dropdown. They are asked on the phone, in search boxes and, increasingly, of AI assistants.

Google's own account of how content reaches its AI features is explicit that there is no markup route in. "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features," the guidance says, and there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode ^[10]. What it lists instead is ordinary practice: allow crawling, make content findable through internal links, keep important content in text form, and make sure structured data matches the visible text ^[10]. A clearly written FAQ section is text, findable and visible. It meets every one of those conditions without any markup at all.

Google's helpful content guidance points the same way. Its ranking systems "are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information that's created to benefit people, and not content that's created to manipulate search engine rankings" ^[11]. Its self-assessment questions ask whether content provides "original information, reporting, research, or analysis" and goes "beyond the obvious" ^[11]. A specific answer to a specific question, written by the person who actually does the work, passes those tests more easily than most of what sits on a local service page.

There is a further reason that applies to AI assistants in particular. I have tested what ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity say when asked for clinics and treatments in Bradford, including about my own clinic, and where the answers were wrong I have traced the errors back to out-of-date or inconsistent third-party pages. An assistant that has to describe a business uses whatever text it can find. A page that states, in plain sentences, what the business does, for whom and on what terms gives it something accurate to quote; a page that leaves the question unanswered leaves the assistant to fill the gap from a directory listing that may be years old. HighRegard's free Live AI Visibility Test runs three representative prompts against one current model with live web search and shows the actual answers with the sources the model cited ^[17]. It measures what is said and where it came from; it does not make any assistant say anything.

Mathews reaches a similar destination by a different route: keep question-and-answer content on service pages for buyers, without FAQPage markup unless the page exists primarily to answer questions, and write answers that are concise, factual and free of promotional language ^[6]. Her view that large language models rely on "clear, structured information" is a practitioner's inference rather than a documented mechanism ^[6]. The practical recommendation does not depend on the inference being right.

What a good FAQ section looks like in 2026 is not complicated. Real questions in the customer's words. The direct answer in the first sentence. Specifics rather than reassurance: a price range, a duration, a condition, a named regulator where one applies. No question invented to carry a keyword. For a regulated business the answers need the same care as any other advertising copy, because an FAQ that implies a registration or an outcome the business cannot support is a compliance problem whether or not any search feature ever displayed it.

The pattern behind the withdrawal

FAQ is not an isolated case. How-to went in two steps in 2023 ^[4][5]. Seven displays went together in June 2025, with Google explaining that they were "not commonly used in Search" and that removing them would "help streamline the results page" ^[7]. Practice problem followed over the winter ^[1]. In each case Google said existing markup could stay and would simply be disregarded ^[7].

The sequence has a shape. Google introduces a display. Tool vendors add a block for it. Agencies add it to proposals. Businesses pay for it. Usage data, or a change in what Google wants the results page to look like, leads Google to withdraw it. The markup stays in millions of pages, doing nothing. Mathews compares it to directory submissions, once encouraged and later abandoned, and calls FAQ schema "the latest reminder that even trusted SEO strategies can turn obsolete overnight" ^[6].

The inference a local business should draw is not that structured data is a waste. It is that work whose only justification is a display feature has the lifespan of that feature, while work that makes the business clearer keeps its value across changes of fashion. Accurate business markup, consistent name, address and opening hours across the web, and honest answers to real questions all fall in the second group. An FAQ dropdown fell in the first. When the next proposal promises visibility because of a particular display, ask what remains if the display is withdrawn.

The case for leaving the markup in place

Removing FAQPage markup is not the only defensible position.

Google itself has said, in 2023 and again in 2025, that unused structured data causes no problems and can stay ^[4][7]. Search Engine Land's report of the May 2026 notice added that other search engines may continue to process the markup for their own purposes ^[2], and Search Engine Journal said sites can keep or remove it "without affecting search visibility" ^[3]. If the markup accurately describes visible questions and answers, it is a truthful semantic description of the page, which is what structured data is meant to be ^[8]. On that reading, deleting it is tidying rather than improving.

Some practitioners go further and argue that question-and-answer markup helps AI systems parse content. Search Engine Journal noted in May 2026 that FAQ schema "has appeared in some AI search-focused advice as a way to make content easier for AI systems to parse", while recording that Google has not connected the deprecation to that trend ^[3]. Google's guidance says no special schema is needed for its own AI features ^[10], but that is silent on what ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity do with markup, and none of those companies has published documentation that this article could open saying FAQPage markup changes how their assistants read a page.

There is also a case against the content pattern itself. The rush to add FAQs everywhere produced many sections that existed to carry keywords rather than answer anything, and Google's rule against marking up promotional or irrelevant content ^[13] was aimed at exactly that. Deleting a padded, invented FAQ block from a landing page loses nothing. The argument for keeping FAQ content applies to questions people actually ask, answered by someone who knows.

My own position, offered as judgement rather than fact: leave accurate markup alone if it is already there, stop adding new markup for Google's sake, and spend the saved effort on the answers.

What the evidence does not settle

Several questions that matter to a business deciding what to do remain open.

• Why Google withdrew the last of the feature. For the June 2025 batch Google gave a reason: low usage and little added value ^[7]. For FAQ in May 2026 it gave none ^[3]. Whether the motive was a tidier results page or something to do with the growth of AI answers is not documented.
• Whether Google still reads FAQPage markup for understanding. Google says it uses structured data to understand pages ^[8] and that unused markup has no visible effect ^[4]. Whether FAQPage now contributes anything to Google's understanding of a page, as opposed to its display, has not been stated either way.
• Whether the markup affects AI assistants outside Google. Practitioner advice says it may ^[6]; Google says nothing special is required for its own AI features ^[10]; the other providers have not, in documentation this article could open, said that FAQPage markup changes how they read a page. Anyone claiming a measured effect should be asked for the measurement.
• What the withdrawal cost the sites that still had the display. Google warned in 2023 that affected sites might see fewer clicks ^[4], and Search Engine Land advised in May 2026 that owners watch their traffic ^[2]. No published before-and-after data for the government and health sites was available for this article.
• How long the currently supported types will last. The search gallery lists twenty-five features today ^[9]. Google's stated reason for the 2025 retirements, that little-used features add little value ^[7], applies to any of them in principle. Which survive is Google's decision.

What is settled is narrower but enough to act on. The FAQ rich result is gone for everyone ^[1]. The markup never moved rankings ^[13]. Google asks for visible, helpful, text-based content and says no special schema is needed for its AI features ^[10][11]. The questions customers ask have not changed. A local business that writes down honest answers to them, keeps its business markup accurate and stops paying for a display that no longer exists has done what the evidence supports. Whether any markup around those answers will ever again earn something visible is a question only the platforms can answer, and their record suggests not waiting for them.