Summary
Google quietly killed one of the longest-running structured data features in search this week.
As of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results no longer appear in Google Search. The expandable Q&A dropdowns that used to sit under listings, the ones SEOs spent years implementing across help centers and blog posts, are gone. Google posted the deprecation notice at the top of its FAQ structured data developer documentation and confirmed a full sunset timeline for the supporting Search Console infrastructure. Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz first reported the change.
What Google Announced
The deprecation note on Google’s developer docs reads:
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.
The timeline:
| Date | What Changes |
|---|---|
| May 7, 2026 | FAQ rich results stop appearing in Google Search |
| June 2026 | FAQ search appearance, rich result report, and Rich Results Test support removed |
| August 2026 | Search Console API support for FAQ rich results ends |
Google also clarified that site owners can leave the schema in place if removing it is a hassle. Other search engines may continue to process it.
This Was a Long Time Coming
Google first restricted FAQ rich results back in August 2023, limiting them to authoritative health and government sites. Most marketers saw FAQ rich result impressions collapse to near zero almost overnight. This week’s announcement is the formal end of the road.
If your site has been carrying FAQ schema for SEO reasons, the SERP benefit has been negligible for almost three years. The actual change in May 2026 is administrative cleanup. Google is closing the reports and APIs that SEOs were still pulling from.
The AEO Angle: Schema’s Role Has Shifted
Here is the part the SEO trade press is mostly missing.
FAQPage structured data still does real work in 2026, just not for Google’s blue links. Structured data is increasingly cited as a meaningful signal for AI search visibility. AI engines that crawl the open web, including the systems behind ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overviews, can use JSON-LD to identify clean question-and-answer pairs on a page. The exact weighting varies by platform and is not publicly documented, but multiple AEO studies have observed higher citation rates on pages with clean structured data than on pages without it.
For sites doing AEO work, FAQ schema went from being SERP decoration to being citation infrastructure. The implementation looks identical. The destination is different.
That reframing matters because most AEO-focused publishers and brands have spent the last year adding FAQPage schema across their content libraries specifically because it makes pages more legible to AI extractors. None of that work is wasted. Removing the schema now would actively reduce your eligibility for AI citations with no upside, since Google was already ignoring it. If you’re earlier in the AEO journey, our breakdown on what Answer Engine Optimization actually is covers the strategic foundation behind why structured data matters for AI citations.
What to Do Now
Leave the schema in place. Google explicitly said you do not need to remove it. The cost of stripping it across a content library is real, and the benefit is zero.
Pull a Search Console baseline now. Before the FAQ reports disappear in June, export performance data for pages with FAQ schema so you have a record of what changes once the rich result is fully gone. Watch for CTR shifts on those URLs over the next four to six weeks.
Stop describing FAQ schema as a Google rich result tactic. If you have content recommending FAQPage schema for SERP visibility, the recommendation still stands but the reasoning needs to update. The benefit now is AI parseability, not the Google dropdown.
Audit your answer formatting. If your FAQ markup was the only Q&A structure on a page, the on-page presentation now matters more. AI engines extract from visible content and structured data together. Clean question-and-answer blocks, short direct answers, and clear heading hierarchy do more for citation eligibility than the JSON-LD on its own. Our framework on auditing marketing content for AEO readiness covers exactly which structural changes move the needle.
The Bigger Pattern
Google has been simplifying its SERP for two years. HowTo rich results were cut in 2023. FAQ visibility was restricted the same year and has now been formally killed. The structured data types that survive are the ones tied to commerce and entities Google still wants to surface visually, including Product, Review, Recipe, and Event.
For everything else, schema is becoming a machine-readability layer for AI systems rather than a visual feature for human searchers. The work site owners do on structured data is increasingly about being legible to ChatGPT and Perplexity, not about earning a SERP enhancement that may or may not survive the next deprecation cycle. For a wider view of how this shift affects organic visibility overall, our piece on whether SEO is dead now that AEO has the spotlight covers the structural divide between the two disciplines.
The job changed. The markup is the same.
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Frequently Asked Questions
When did Google deprecate FAQ rich results?
Google stopped showing FAQ rich results in search as of May 7, 2026. The FAQ search appearance, rich result report, and Rich Results Test support will be removed in June 2026, and Search Console API support for FAQ rich results ends in August 2026. The full sunset timeline was announced at the top of Google’s FAQ structured data developer documentation.
Should I remove FAQPage schema from my site?
No. Google explicitly said you do not need to remove the schema, and removing it would actively reduce your eligibility for AI citations with no upside. FAQPage structured data is still parsed by AI search engines including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Leave the markup in place.
Was this deprecation a surprise?
No. Google first restricted FAQ rich results to authoritative health and government sites in August 2023, and FAQ rich result impressions for non-authority sites collapsed to near zero almost immediately. The May 2026 announcement is the formal end of the road, not a sudden change. For most marketers, the SERP benefit of FAQ schema has been negligible for almost three years.
Does FAQ schema still help with AI search visibility?
Yes. AI engines that crawl the open web can use JSON-LD to identify clean question-and-answer pairs on a page. The exact weighting varies by platform and is not publicly documented, but multiple AEO studies have observed higher citation rates on pages with clean structured data than on pages without it. FAQPage schema has shifted from being SERP decoration to being citation infrastructure.
What happens to my Search Console FAQ reports?
The FAQ rich result report and Rich Results Test support will be removed in June 2026, and Search Console API support for FAQ rich results will end in August 2026. Before the reports disappear in June, export performance data for pages with FAQ schema so you have a baseline record of CTR and impressions to compare against post-deprecation traffic patterns.
Which structured data types still earn rich results in Google?
Product, Review, Recipe, and Event schema continue to render as rich results in Google Search. The structured data types that survive Google’s SERP simplification are the ones tied to commerce and entities Google still wants to surface visually. For everything else, schema is becoming a machine-readability layer for AI systems rather than a visual feature for human searchers.
Will this affect my organic traffic?
For most sites, the impact will be minimal because FAQ rich results have been suppressed for non-authority sites since August 2023. If your site is in the health or government vertical and was still earning FAQ rich results, expect a CTR drop on those pages over the next four to six weeks. For everyone else, the deprecation is administrative cleanup with little practical effect on existing organic performance.
