FAQ Schema

The markup was built for a result Google no longer shows. In August 2023 Google said FAQ rich results would be shown only for well-known, authoritative government and health sites, and not regularly for any other site^[1]. In May 2026 it added a deprecation notice to its documentation: the feature no longer appears in Google Search from 7 May 2026, and in June it removed the documentation^[2].

Dropping it is optional. When it reduced the result in 2023, Google said there was no need to remove the structured data proactively, because markup that is not used does not cause problems for Search and has no visible effect there^[1]. Keeping it costs nothing in Search, and neither does leaving it out.

The vocabulary itself has not changed. Schema.org defines an FAQPage as a web page presenting one or more frequently asked questions^[3], and the Question type as a specific question, such as one collected in a frequently asked questions document, with an acceptedAnswer property for the answer^[4]. Any system that reads schema.org can read it.

What lasts is the question-and-answer content on the page. Microsoft’s guidance on AI search answers says that direct questions with clear answers mirror the way people search, that assistants can often lift such pairs word for word into AI-generated responses, and that schema can label content as an FAQ so machines can interpret it^[5]. Google says there is no special schema.org structured data to add for its AI features, and that structured data should match the visible text on the page^[6]. Markup is one of several statements a site can make to a machine. In QueryRev’s study, 164 of the 5,637 robots.txt files read, 2.9%, carry a Content-Signal line stating preferences for search, AI input and AI training^[7]. Each says something to a program, and neither replaces a page that answers the question.

Count the pages that carry FAQPage markup, and check on each that every marked question and answer is visible in the page’s text, word for word. Structured data that does not match the visible text is the one failure that matters, whatever the markup earns.

Measure what the questions earn now. Record, for the questions the page answers, whether the page holds a featured snippet or a place in People Also Ask, and whether an AI answer quotes or cites the passage. These are the results a clear question and answer can still win, and they are counted with the AEO measures, not as rich results.

Check that the answers can be read. Microsoft advises against hiding important answers in tabs or expandable menus, because AI systems may not render hidden content^[5]. An accordion that needs a click is a risk for the answer, whatever the markup says.

Sample data: an invented site, to show the method.

A sample health information site, of the well-known kind that Google still showed FAQ rich results for after August 2023, has a guide to home blood pressure checks with three questions and FAQPage markup that labels them. Before 7 May 2026 the markup could earn an FAQ rich result in Google Search. After that day no site is shown one. The questions, the answers and the markup are the same in both versions, and what has changed is what the markup earns.

The site leaves the visible questions in place, because readers use them, and checks once that the markup matches them word for word. It stops adding FAQ markup to new pages as a way to earn a result, and it measures the three questions by whether an answer lifts them, not by a rich result that cannot appear.