If you’ve had FAQ schema on your site in hopes of getting those expandable question-and-answer (Q&A) blocks in Google Search, the final nail in the coffin is here.
As of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results are no longer appearing in Google Search. Google will drop the FAQ search appearance, the rich result report, and support in the Rich Results Test in June 2026. Support for the FAQ rich result in the Search Console API follows in August 2026, to give developers time to adjust their API calls.
This is worth writing about, not just because of the deprecation itself, but because FAQ schema became one of the most widely misunderstood tactics in SEO. A lot of sites were sold on it, implemented it, and got nothing from it. The deprecation is a good moment to clear that up so your SEO team or you stop wasting time on it.
What FAQ schema actually did
FAQ schema is a type of structured data that tells Google a page contains a list of questions and answers. When it worked, it displayed those Q&As as expandable dropdowns directly in the search result, taking up more screen space and potentially increasing click-through rates.
For most sites, it never worked. Because most sites never qualified.
FAQ rich results were only available for well-known, authoritative websites that are government-focused or health-focused. That’s it. Not your e-commerce store, not your local service business, not your SaaS product, not your agency blog. If you’re not the HSE, NHS or a government agency, you were never in the running.
This restriction has been in place since 2023, when Google quietly narrowed eligibility after the feature had been broadly available for a couple of years. A lot of guides, plugins, and SEO checklists never caught up with that change, so the advice to “add FAQ schema to your pages for rich results” kept circulating long after it stopped applying to most of the web.
Why this matters for the schema debate
FAQ schema became a case study in a broader SEO misconception: that structured data is a ranking factor or a reliable shortcut to better AI visibility.
It isn’t. Structured data tells Google what type of content is on a page. It doesn’t make the content more relevant, it doesn’t add authority, and for most schema types, it only affects eligibility for specific rich result features, not where you rank in standard results.
FAQ schema never improved rankings. At best, it expanded how your result looked for users who were already finding you. When Google restricted eligibility to health and government sites in 2023, it stopped doing even that for almost everyone using it.
The plugins and WordPress themes that added FAQ schema automatically, including several popular SEO plugins, were generating code that produced no visible output in search for the vast majority of sites. That’s not harmful, but it’s wasted effort, and it fed a general overconfidence in what schema can do.
What structured data is actually worth doing
Schema isn’t useless. It just works for specific use cases, and FAQ was never as broadly useful as it was presented to be.
LocalBusiness schema is worth doing properly if you have a physical location or service area. It helps Google understand your business details for local search features. Review and rating schema on product and service pages can trigger star ratings in results, which do affect click-through rates. Article schema on editorial content helps Google understand publication dates and authorship, which matters for news and timely content. BreadcrumbList schema helps Google display your site structure in results, which improves how your listings look for navigational queries. Product schema for e-commerce, including price and availability, feeds directly into Shopping features.
What all of these have in common is that they serve a specific purpose and produce a visible output when implemented correctly on a qualifying site. FAQ schema, for most of the sites that had it, was doing neither.
What to do now
If you have FAQ schema on your site, you don’t need to remove it urgently. Google has given until June 2026 for the search appearance and rich result reporting to be dropped, and August 2026 for the Search Console API changes. There’s no penalty for having it, and it’s not affecting your rankings either way.
If you’re doing a technical audit or your SEO plugin is still auto-generating FAQ schema, it’s worth turning that off. It’s code that serves no purpose, and keeping your structured data meaningful is good practice.
The bigger point is to be sceptical when someone tells you that adding a particular schema type will improve your visibility. The question to ask is: what specific rich result feature does this enable, and does my site actually qualify for it? If there’s no clear answer to both, it’s probably not worth the effort.
Not sure what’s actually worth implementing on your site?
Structured data, technical SEO, content strategy, there’s a lot of conflicting advice out there and a lot of it is out of date. PrimaryRush works with businesses to focus on what actually matters. If you want an honest look at your site’s SEO setup, get in touch.