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FAQ rich results are gone (May 2026): what FAQ markup still does and doesn't do

Google stopped showing FAQ rich results on 7 May 2026 and removed the documentation in June. What FAQPage markup still does, what it never did, and whether to keep it.

By Ed Grows · Updated 10 min read

Since 7 May 2026, Google Search has shown no FAQ rich results for any site. There was no blog post. Google added a deprecation notice to its FAQ structured data documentation, and on 15 June it removed that documentation entirely. FAQPage markup is still valid schema.org, and you can leave it on your pages. In Google Search it no longer produces anything.

If you were looking for a generator, the free FAQ generator writes question-and-answer pairs and the FAQPage JSON-LD for them (three pairs are shown free; the full set and the JSON-LD unlock with an email). The rest of this page is about whether you still need one.

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What Google announced, and when

The notice read: "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." Because the documentation page is gone, the text now survives in coverage such as Search Engine Journal's report and in Google's updates log.

What the markup still does

It stays valid. FAQPage is a schema.org type. It doesn't throw errors or trigger manual actions, and Google said in 2023 that structured data it doesn't use "does not cause problems for Search" (Google, August 2023). The May 2026 notice said the markup can stay in place.

It labels question and answer boundaries. Any parser reading the page can see which text is a question and which is its answer without inferring it from heading levels. Whether any AI system uses that labelling as a signal is unmeasured.

It documents intent for your own tooling. If your CMS generates FAQ sections from structured fields, the markup is a cheap by-product. That's a fine reason to keep it, not a reason to add it.

What it doesn't do

It produces no Google search feature. Nothing you change brings the dropdown back.

It isn't an AI citation lever. Google's guide to generative AI features (May 2026) says "Structured data isn't required for generative AI search, and there's no special schema.org markup you need to add." The same guide says "There's no requirement to break your content into tiny pieces for AI to better understand it", which also undercuts the idea that Q&A formatting is a required AI format.

Independent work doesn't contradict that. Cyrus Shepard's review of AI citation ranking factors (Zyppy, May 2026) found a small but consistent positive relationship between schema in general and AI citations, scoring it 5.6 out of 10. Those are correlations across schema types; none isolates FAQPage, and none shows it causes citations.

Google gave no reason for the removal, and its notice doesn't mention AI search. The 2023 restriction was framed as "a cleaner and more consistent search experience", and FAQ markup had been widely added to pages with no real questions to answer. Those two facts are as far as the evidence goes.

Keep it, remove it, or add it?

  • Keep existing FAQPage markup where every pair also appears as visible text on the page. Removing it gains nothing.
  • Remove pairs that exist only in the markup. Google's structured data guidelines don't allow marking up content users can't see, and hidden Q&A was the misuse that made the feature unreliable.
  • Merge duplicates. Schema.org doesn't forbid two FAQPage blocks on one URL, but a single block with every pair in mainEntity avoids the common case of a plugin and a theme both emitting one.
  • Don't add new FAQ sections to chase a search feature. Add one when readers have real follow-up questions the page doesn't already answer.
  • Don't switch to QAPage to get a result back. QAPage is for pages where users submit answers to a question, such as forums.

If you keep FAQ sections, write them for readers

The dropdown used to reward any FAQ block. Without it, a Q&A section earns its place only if a reader finds it useful. These are house guidelines, not Google rules or measured thresholds:

  1. Answer in the first sentence. Not context, not "it depends". Everything after it is elaboration.
  2. Make each pair stand alone. Cut it out of the page and read it. If it needs the paragraph above to make sense, rewrite it.
  3. Keep answers to roughly 40 to 70 words. Long enough to be a complete answer, short enough to be read in one go. Split longer answers into two questions.
  4. Phrase questions the way people ask them. "How do I add FAQ schema?" rather than "FAQPage implementation methodology".
  5. Don't repeat the body. If the article already answers it, the FAQ is padding.
THE ANSWER NEVER ARRIVESHow do I add FAQ schema to my page?There are several factors to consider when implementing structured data. Manypractitioners debate the best approach. In this answer we'll explore the optionsavailable to you and what each one means for your site…ANSWER FIRST, 46 WORDSHow do I add FAQ schema to my page?Add a script tag of type application/ld+json containing FAQPage markup, with one Questionand acceptedAnswer for each pair. Every pair must also appear as visible text on the page.Since May 2026 it earns no Google rich result, so add it only where readers need it.House guideline: a self-contained answer of about 40–70 words whose first sentence is the answer.

The FAQPage JSON-LD, for reference

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "Did Google remove FAQ rich results?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Yes. FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search on 7 May 2026, and Google removed the FAQ structured data documentation on 15 June 2026. FAQPage markup is still valid schema.org and can stay on the page, but it no longer produces a search feature."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How many questions should an FAQ section have?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "As many as readers genuinely ask and the page does not already answer. For most articles that is between two and five. A long list of questions nobody asked reads as padding, and it was that kind of filler that made FAQ rich results unreliable."
      }
    }
  ]
}

Two details catch people out. The name and text values should be plain text, not HTML. And @type values are case-sensitive: "FaqPage" is not the schema.org type FAQPage, so check the exact spelling in the Schema Markup Validator.

How to validate FAQ markup now

Google's Rich Results Test stopped supporting FAQ in June 2026, so it can no longer tell you anything about this type. Use the Schema Markup Validator, which checks JSON-LD against schema.org itself. Then do the check no tool performs: open the published page and confirm every pair in the markup is visible on it.

CMS plugins deserve a look too. Some still describe their FAQ blocks as producing rich results. Check the output on a few published pages before trusting it across a site.

Next step: audit the FAQ blocks you already have

Open three pages with FAQ sections. For each pair, ask whether a reader would miss it if it were gone, and whether it appears on the page as well as in the markup. Delete what fails the first test and fix what fails the second. The broader picture of which markup still produces anything in Google is in schema markup and AI Overviews.

FAQ

Will Google bring FAQ rich results back?
Google hasn't said anything to suggest it will. The feature was narrowed in 2023, switched off in May 2026, and its documentation, report and testing support were removed by June. Plan on the assumption that it's gone, and judge FAQ sections by whether readers use them rather than by whether they could ever trigger a search feature again.
Is HowTo markup worth keeping?
By the same logic as FAQPage, yes if it's already there and matches visible steps, no if you're adding it for a search feature. HowTo rich results ended in 2023, first on mobile in August and then on desktop in September. The markup remains valid schema.org and Google has said unused structured data causes no problems.

Sources cited in this piece

Updated October 1, 2026: refocused on what changed after the FAQ deprecation, moved all deadlines to past tense, added the June documentation removal, and brought this page's own FAQ answers within its 40–70 word guideline.

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