Is FAQ schema deprecated? What FAQPage markup still does
Google stopped showing FAQ rich results on May 7, 2026, after limiting them in 2023. FAQPage is still valid schema.org. What to keep, remove and write.
LLaunchScaler·Published ·8 min read
Yes, for Google: the FAQ rich result is deprecated. Google cut it back to "well-known, authoritative government and health websites" in August 2023, announced it "will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026," and removed its documentation in June 2026. The FAQPage type is still valid schema.org markup, but no site should expect expandable FAQ answers under its Google result any more.
What remains useful is the FAQ itself: visible questions with short, direct answers, which readers, answer boxes and AI engines can all use. Below are the dates, what Google said at each step, and what to do with the markup you already have, checked in September 2026.
Is FAQ schema deprecated?
The FAQ rich result is deprecated in Google Search; the schema.org type is not. Google restricted FAQ rich results in August 2023, then ended them entirely from May 7, 2026. schema.org still defines FAQPage as "a WebPage presenting one or more 'Frequently asked questions'," and its page reports usage on 1M to 10M domains from Google's web index.
The distinction matters because two different things share one name. Schema.org is a shared vocabulary that any search engine or parser can read. A Google rich result is one display feature that Google chooses to show or not. Google withdrew the display. It did not, and cannot, withdraw the vocabulary.
When did Google change FAQ and HowTo rich results?
In four steps between 2023 and 2026. Google restricted FAQ results and moved HowTo results to desktop in August 2023, dropped HowTo results completely a month later, then announced in May 2026 that FAQ results would stop appearing, and removed the FAQ documentation in June 2026.
Date
What Google did
Google's words
August 8, 2023
Restricted FAQ rich results
Questions, answered
What people ask about this
01
Is FAQ schema deprecated?
Google's FAQ rich result is. Google limited it to well-known government and health sites in August 2023 and said it would no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026, then removed its documentation in June 2026. The FAQPage type itself is still part of schema.org.
"will only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer be shown regularly."
August 8, 2023
Limited HowTo rich results to desktop
"will only be shown for desktop users, and not for users on mobile devices"
September 13, 2023
Stopped HowTo rich results on desktop too
"Google Search no longer shows How-to rich results on desktop, which means this result type is now deprecated."
May 8, 2026 (changelog)
Deprecated the FAQ rich result
"This feature will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026."
June 15, 2026 (changelog)
Removed the FAQ rich result documentation
"The FAQ rich result feature is no longer shown in Google Search results"
Two lines from the 2023 announcement still apply. Google said the change "should not be considered a ranking change," and that "Structured data that's not being used does not cause problems for Search, but also has no visible effects in Google Search."
What happened to HowTo rich results?
They went first. In August 2023 Google limited How-to rich results to desktop, noting that under mobile-first indexing the mobile version of a page still needed the markup. On September 13, 2023 it stopped showing them on desktop as well, called the type deprecated, and removed the How-to report, search appearance and Rich Results Test support 30 days later.
If you still have HowTo markup, it has no visible effect in Google Search. It remains valid schema.org, the same as FAQPage.
Should you remove FAQPage markup from your site?
You don't need to. Google told site owners in 2023 that "there's no need to proactively remove it," because unused structured data causes no problems. Keep the markup if it describes a FAQ readers can see on the page and it stays in step with that FAQ. Remove it if it has drifted from the visible text or marks up questions that are not there.
Use this rule for each page that carries it:
Open the page and compare the marked-up questions with the visible ones. If they differ, fix the markup or delete it. Google's general guidelines say "Don't mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page," and Bing says misleading markup "may be ignored."
Check that the block parses. A broken block is dead weight whether or not Google shows a rich result.
If the markup was generated by a plugin you no longer use, remove the plugin rather than leaving stale output on hundreds of pages.
Don't add FAQ sections to pages only to carry markup. A FAQ that exists for markup and not for readers adds length without answering anything.
How do you find every page that still carries FAQ or HowTo markup?
Search your templates and plugins first, then check the live pages. FAQ markup usually comes from one of three places: a component in your codebase, an SEO or FAQ plugin in your CMS, or a tag manager script. Finding the source matters more than finding the pages, because one template can put the same block on hundreds of URLs.
Search your codebase for FAQPage and HowTo. In a CMS, open the settings of any SEO or FAQ plugin and look for an option that outputs FAQ schema.
Check whether the markup is in the server response or added in the browser. A tag manager can inject it after load, which means your source code will not show it.
Walk your sitemap and test the raw HTML of each URL. The loop below prints every URL whose server response contains FAQPage markup:
curl -s https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml | grep -o '<loc>[^<]*' | sed 's/<loc>//' | while read -r u; do curl -s "$u" | grep -q 'FAQPage' && echo "$u"; done
For each URL it prints, apply the keep-or-remove rule in the previous section.
If the loop prints nothing but a browser's developer tools show the markup, it is being injected by JavaScript. Google can read that; most other crawlers cannot, which is a second reason to move any markup you keep into the server-rendered page.
What is FAQPage markup still good for?
It still describes a page's questions and answers in a standard form that other systems can read, but the evidence that it earns AI citations is thin. Bing says structured data "may support clearer grounding but does not guarantee visibility." Google says no special schema is needed for its generative AI features. The visible FAQ is what engines actually quote.
The data points in the same direction. AccuraCast analysed about 9,000 sources cited in answers to 2,000+ prompts on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity and found FAQPage on 1.8% of them. Its authors concluded that FAQ and product schema had "little or no bearing on source visibility in AI answers."
So the honest position is modest. FAQPage markup is harmless when accurate, may help a parser identify question-and-answer pairs, and is no longer a route to extra space in Google's results. The broader evidence on schema and AI answers is in does schema markup help AI search.
How should you write a FAQ for readers and answer engines now?
Write it for the person reading the page, with each answer complete in one to three sentences, and put the text in the HTML. Microsoft's guidance on its Copilot citation reports names FAQ sections, with clear headings and tables, as structure that helps "make content easier for AI systems to reference accurately." That describes the visible FAQ, not the markup.
Pick questions people really ask: your support inbox, sales calls, and the People Also Ask box for your main query are better sources than guesses.
Answer in the first sentence. The rest of the answer adds the condition, the number or the next step.
Make every answer stand alone. It should make sense lifted out of the page, without "as mentioned above."
Use the same facts as the rest of the page. A FAQ that says "14-day trial" under a pricing table that says "7-day trial" teaches every engine the wrong thing.
Keep the answers in the server-rendered HTML. An accordion can collapse them visually, but Vercel found that none of the major AI crawlers it measured render JavaScript, so text loaded on click may never be seen.
Review it when the product changes. Stale FAQ answers are a common source of wrong AI descriptions.
If you keep FAQPage markup, the structure is one FAQPage whose mainEntity is a list of Question items, each with a name and an acceptedAnswer of type Answer with a text. Every question and answer must match text visible on the page. Validate it against schema.org, since Google no longer documents the type as a rich result.
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Is there a free plan?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Yes. The free plan includes one project and never expires."
}
}
]
}
</script>
Check it in the Schema Markup Validator at validator.schema.org, which tests markup against the schema.org vocabulary. Common errors, from trailing commas to missing properties, are listed in structured data errors. If the same page also describes your company, keep that in a separate Organization block, covered in Organization schema markup.
Check the markup and the answers on your pages
Run the free scan on LaunchScaler to check what your FAQ pages actually send. It takes a URL, needs no account and runs 156 checks across 6 of its 7 categories at no cost. It flags JSON-LD that does not parse, structured data missing required properties, pages with no concise answer passage an answer box could lift, and primary content that only appears after JavaScript runs.
You don't have to. When Google restricted the feature in 2023 it said there is no need to proactively remove the markup, because structured data that isn't used causes no problems for Search. Keep it if it matches a visible FAQ and costs you nothing to maintain.
03
Does FAQ schema help with AI Overviews or ChatGPT?
There is little evidence it does. AccuraCast found FAQPage on only 1.8% of pages cited by ChatGPT, AI Overviews and Perplexity, and Google says no special schema is needed for its AI features. The visible questions and answers matter more than the markup.
04
What happened to HowTo rich results?
Google limited them to desktop in August 2023, then stopped showing them on desktop too on September 13, 2023, which made the result type deprecated.
05
Can I still mark up FAQs that are hidden in accordions?
Mark up only questions and answers that readers can see on the page. Put the text in the HTML the server sends, even if an accordion collapses it, because most AI crawlers do not run JavaScript.
GEO is optimizing content to be quoted inside AI answers. The 2023 paper that named it found citations, quotes and statistics lifted visibility 30 to 40%.
