FAQ rich results have been permanently removed from Google Search for all websites, including government and health sites that had retained the feature since a 2023 restriction. Google updated its Search Central structured data documentation on May 7, 2026, stating: "As of May 7, 2026, 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." Google did not publish a blog post or provide a stated rationale alongside the notice.
Deprecation Timeline and Affected Tools
The deprecation carries a timeline that extends several months: the FAQ search appearance and its associated rich result report will be dropped from Search Console in June 2026, and support through the Search Console API will be removed in August 2026.
In August 2026, Google will remove FAQ rich result support from the Search Console API. The three-month gap between the Search Console UI removal and the API removal gives developers time to adjust any automated reporting or monitoring that relies on FAQ rich result data.
Google's Search Central documentation updates log confirms: "Added a deprecation notice to the FAQ rich result documentation. This feature will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026." The documentation page was last updated May 8, 2026 UTC.
Three Years in the Making
The deprecation completes a process that began in August 2023, when John Mueller, a Search Advocate at Google, posted on the Google Search Central blog that FAQ rich results would only appear for well-known authoritative government and health websites going forward.
The 2023 update was framed as a search appearance change, not a ranking change, and it was rolled out globally within a week of the announcement. For most of the web, FAQ rich results have already been gone for nearly three years. The May 2026 announcement removes them for everyone, including the sites that retained them after the 2023 restriction.
Google's March 2026 core update extended the cut further: across tracked sites, FAQ rich result impressions fell again from the post-2023 baseline. By April 2026, the feature was generating almost no impressions for almost anyone.
What Happens to Existing FAQ Structured Data
Google's deprecation applies specifically to the rich result display feature, not to the FAQPage schema type itself. Google states that it will continue to use FAQ structured data to better understand pages, even though it will no longer display the rich result. This confirms what some SEO professionals have argued since the 2023 restriction: structured data and rich results are two different things.
Other search engines may continue to process and display FAQ markup. Leaving the code in place does not create Search Console errors or affect Google rankings.
The FAQPage structured data type itself is not deprecated. Sites that implemented FAQ markup for genuine question-and-answer content on their pages are not required to remove it.
No Official Explanation Provided
Google has not connected the deprecation to any specific trend. The company gave no explanation beyond adding the deprecation notice to its documentation.
The 2023 restriction was widely attributed to widespread abuse of FAQ schema. Sites had been adding artificial FAQ sections to inflate their SERP real estate, often with questions that did not match user intent or answers that existed only to occupy more pixels. Google has not confirmed this as the basis for the full deprecation.
The timing has drawn attention from practitioners because FAQ schema has appeared in some AI search-focused advice as a way to make content easier for AI systems to parse. Google's action does not directly confirm or refute that claim; it addresses only the visible rich result in traditional search. Whether FAQPage markup influences how Google's AI systems process and cite content remains a distinct question that the deprecation notice does not resolve.
Implications for SEO and Marketing Teams
For teams with FAQ structured data deployed across their sites, the immediate practical impact is the loss of the expandable dropdown display in organic search results. Teams that built reporting workflows around FAQ rich result performance, including Search Console enhancement reports, Rich Results Test validation, and API data pulls, will need to update those processes before June 2026 for UI-based reporting and before August 2026 for API-dependent pipelines. Exporting historical FAQ rich result performance data from Google Search Console before the June 2026 reporting removal is advisable for teams that need to retain a record of past performance. Because Google has confirmed it will continue reading FAQ structured data for page comprehension purposes, removing existing markup is not a technical requirement under the current documentation.
Google's Search Central documentation log records the change as: "Added a deprecation notice to the FAQ rich result documentation. This feature will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026."
