--- title: "Google removes FAQ rich results from Search" url: https://seomadman.com/news/faq-rich-results-removed section: news published: 2026-06-22T00:00:00.000Z modified: 2026-06-22T00:00:00.000Z author: Adam Hafez topics: ["Structured data", "Technical SEO"] --- # Google removes FAQ rich results from Search ## The short answer Google stopped showing FAQ rich results in Search on 7 May 2026, ending a phase-out that began with an August 2023 restriction to authoritative government and health sites. FAQPage markup remains a valid Schema.org type and causes no harm left in place, but produces no visible Google feature. Other crawlers, including Bingbot and PerplexityBot, still read it. ## Key takeaways - Google's own documentation confirms FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Search on 7 May 2026. - Google will drop the FAQ search appearance filter, rich result report and Rich Results Test support in June 2026, and Search Console API support in August 2026. - Google did not publish a blog post explaining the removal, only a notice added to its structured data documentation. - The change completes a three-year phase-out that began in August 2023, when FAQ rich results were restricted to authoritative government and health sites. - FAQPage remains a valid Schema.org type, and crawlers outside Google, including Bingbot and PerplexityBot, still read it even though Google's classic rich result is gone. Google has stopped showing FAQ rich results in Search. The change took effect on 7 May 2026, according to a notice Google added to its own structured data documentation, and it closes out a phase-out that started in August 2023. The feature is gone from the results page; the schema itself is not gone from the web. ## What Google actually said Google did not publish a blog post about the removal. The only public record is a notice added to the FAQ structured data documentation, later folded into the [Search Central changelog](https://developers.google.com/search/updates#removing-faq-rich-result): "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." Three dates follow from that notice. FAQ rich results stopped appearing on 7 May 2026. The search appearance filter, the rich result report and Rich Results Test support go in June 2026. Search Console API support for the FAQ rich result type ends in August 2026, giving teams pulling that data a window to adjust their calls before it disappears. ## A three-year phase-out, not a single decision This did not happen in one step. In August 2023, Google restricted FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health sites, cutting the feature for everyone else. The same period narrowed HowTo rich results to mobile only, before removing them entirely by September 2023. May 2026 finishes the job Google started then: the last sites still eligible for a FAQ rich result, the authoritative government and health properties, lose it too. Neither removal came with a stated reason from Google beyond the documentation notices themselves. The pattern across both is the same: a feature narrows in scope first, then disappears once the narrower version stops being worth maintaining. ## What to do with FAQPage markup now Google's documentation is explicit that unused structured data does not cause problems for Search, and FAQPage is still a valid [Schema.org](/topics/structured-data) type. There is no stated penalty for leaving the markup in place, only the loss of the Google feature it used to produce. The markup is not only read by Google, either. Bingbot, PerplexityBot and other retrieval-focused crawlers used by AI answer systems still parse FAQPage data on the open web. Removing it would strip a machine-readable answer format that those systems can still use, in exchange for a Google feature that is no longer there to lose. Keeping the markup costs nothing measurable; stripping it trades away a format other consumers still read for no offsetting benefit on Google. ## Why we care A rich result disappearing is routine. What is worth tracking is the shape of the decision: Google narrowed FAQ eligibility for three years before cutting it entirely, gave no public explanation beyond a documentation notice, and left the underlying schema untouched. That is the pattern to watch for the next rich result on a restricted eligibility list, and it is a reminder that structured data now has an audience beyond the search engine that popularized it. ## Frequently asked questions ### Should I remove FAQPage markup from my pages? Google's own documentation says unused structured data does not cause problems, and FAQPage is still a valid Schema.org type. There is no stated penalty for keeping it, only the loss of the Google feature it used to power. ### Does any Google surface still use FAQ markup? Google's notice covers the classic FAQ rich result in Search. It does not say whether FAQPage data feeds any other Google system, and Google has not published a separate statement on that. ### What was the August 2023 change? Google restricted FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health websites, cutting them for every other site. The same period saw HowTo rich results reduced to mobile only before being removed entirely by September 2023. ## Sources 1. [Latest documentation updates: Removing documentation for the FAQ rich result feature](https://developers.google.com/search/updates#removing-faq-rich-result) - Google Search Central (primary) 2. [Google Drops FAQ Rich Results From Search](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-drops-faq-rich-results-from-search/574429/) - Search Engine Journal