Short answer: Google stopped showing FAQ rich results in Search on 7 May 2026, for every site. The FAQPage schema type itself is not deprecated and is still read by Bing, by AI assistants, and by answer engines. Keep the markup, but stop expecting it to change how your result looks on Google.
Key Takeaways
- FAQ rich results were narrowed to authoritative health and government sites in August 2023, then retired entirely in May 2026.
- HowTo rich results went the same way, disappearing from desktop in September 2023.
- FAQPage is still a valid schema.org type. Existing markup causes no errors and no penalty.
- Google says structured data is not required for AI Overviews, so do not let anyone sell you FAQ markup on that promise.
- The reason to keep it is machine readability across engines other than Google Search, plus the content discipline it forces.
What Actually Changed
For several years, marking up a page with FAQPage schema could make your Google result expand into a stack of collapsible questions. It took up more space, pushed competitors down, and was one of the few reliably measurable wins in technical SEO. Agencies sold it heavily, and plenty of sites added FAQ sections to pages that did not need them purely to earn the display.
In August 2023 Google limited that display to well-known authoritative government and health sites. Most commercial sites lost it immediately. On 7 May 2026 Google retired it completely, including for the sites that had kept it.
HowTo rich results followed the same path, disappearing from desktop results in September 2023. The pattern is consistent: Google reduced the number of ways markup alone could change how a result looks.
So Is the Markup Worthless Now?
No, but the honest answer is that its value moved somewhere harder to measure.
| What it used to do | What it does now |
|---|---|
| Expanded your Google result into an FAQ accordion | Nothing in Google Search appearance. That is gone for all sites. |
| Was a measurable CTR play | No longer measurable through Search Console FAQ reporting |
| Was parsed by other engines as a side effect | That is now the main reason to have it. Bing and AI crawlers still read it. |
| Forced question-and-answer structure on the page | Unchanged, and this is quietly the biggest benefit |
Google has been explicit that structured data is not required for a page to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Anyone telling you FAQ markup is the route into AI Overviews is overselling. What the markup does is state your questions and answers in an unambiguous machine-readable form, which helps any system that chooses to read it, and several do.
There is also no cleanup task here. Google has said more than once that unused structured data does not cause problems. Leaving existing FAQPage markup in place is safe.
The Benefit Nobody Talks About
Writing valid FAQPage markup forces you to express content as a discrete question paired with a self-contained answer. That is exactly the structure that answer engines extract, and it is the same discipline behind winning featured snippets.
In other words, the markup was never the thing creating the value. The content shape it required was. That shape still works, and it now pays off in places that did not exist when FAQ rich results launched.
How to Implement It Properly
If you are going to do it, do it so it cannot drift:
- Only mark up questions and answers that are actually visible on the page. Markup that does not match visible content has always been a violation, and it is still one.
- Generate the structured data from the same source as the rendered content, rather than maintaining two copies.
- Write answers as complete, self-contained sentences. An answer that only makes sense after reading the question above it is less quotable.
- Validate with the Schema.org validator rather than relying on Google's testing tools, which are removing FAQ support in stages.
- Do not add an FAQ section to a page that does not need one. That tactic existed to farm a display feature that no longer exists.
A Worked Example: This Site
Every service page and blog post here carries FAQPage structured data, including this page. The questions you can expand at the bottom and the structured data in the page source are generated from one array in our codebase, so they cannot disagree with each other.
Our build also refuses to complete if a FAQ answer is malformed, which means a broken FAQ cannot reach production. That matters more than it sounds: the common failure is not missing markup, it is markup that silently stopped matching the page after someone edited the visible copy.
We kept all of this after May 2026 despite losing the rich result, because Bing still reads it, AI assistants still read it, and the plain-text copy of each page we publish for machine readers is built from the same source.
What We Would Not Claim
We cannot show you a chart proving FAQ markup causes AI citations. Nobody can, because the platforms do not expose that attribution, and Google has said the markup is not required for AI surfaces. What we can say is that the markup is cheap, safe, read by several systems, and that the content structure it enforces is valuable on its own.
If an agency offers you FAQ schema as a route to AI Overview placement, ask them how they will measure it. The answer is the test.
Our AEO service implements this in your codebase, alongside the answer-first restructuring that does most of the work. Business websites start from $500 and web applications from $1,500 on our pricing overview, with final cost depending on scope.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I remove FAQ schema from my site now that rich results are gone?
No. Google has stated that unused structured data does not cause problems in Search, and the markup is still read by Bing, by AI crawlers, and by other tools. Removing it costs development time and gains nothing. Leave valid markup in place and stop reporting on it as a Google Search feature.
Does FAQ schema help me appear in Google AI Overviews?
Google has said structured data is not required for AI Overviews or AI Mode, so no one can promise that it does. Markup may help any system that chooses to parse it, but treat claims of a direct causal link to AI Overview placement with caution, and ask how the claim would be measured.
When exactly did Google stop showing FAQ rich results?
FAQ rich results were restricted to well-known authoritative government and health sites in August 2023, which removed them from most commercial sites. They were retired completely on 7 May 2026, including for the sites that had retained them. Search Console and testing tool support is being withdrawn in stages.
Is HowTo structured data still worth adding?
HowTo rich results were deprecated on desktop in September 2023 and no longer appear in Google Search. The schema type remains valid and machine-readable, so the reasoning is the same as for FAQPage: keep it if it describes real visible content, but do not expect it to change how your Google result looks.
What should I do instead of chasing FAQ rich results?
Put the effort into the content structure the markup used to require. A clear question as a heading, a self-contained answer of about 40 to 60 words beneath it, and the detail underneath that. This wins featured snippets, reads well for people, and is the format answer engines quote most reliably.