Google ends FAQ rich results for most of the websites was somewhat unexpected and quite shocking for a number of SEOs. For years, FAQ schema has been a quick option for publishers to fill up the real estate with a search result page, and the added visibility has proven to be real and measurable clicks. Then, overnight, that advantage was taken away from almost all sites, many website owners wondering what's happened and why their FAQ snippets suddenly were not appearing on the SERPs.

So what actually happened here, and more importantly, what should you do about it now that this update has settled in? Let's break it down clearly, step by step, without the usual SEO jargon getting in the way.

What Are FAQ Rich Results?

FAQ rich results are the frequently asked questions that appeared under some search results. You would enter a search term and instead of a blue link, you would find a small FAQ section directly in the search results, which will likely lower your listing on the results page but will make it much more poppy. They filled up more screen space, which was great for site owners because they could generate more clicks and increased visibility over competitors.

The feature required the addition of FAQPage structured data to your site with the help of JSON-LD markup, which was not too difficult. But once thousands of blogs, ecommerce stores, and SaaS websites have realised its ability to generate additional real estate, it's a quick implementation. Then Google updated the rules and it was the easy visibility that went away for most of them practically overnight.

Did Google Actually End FAQ Rich Results?

Yes, mostly. Google made a large-scale change to the way it presents FAQ and How-To rich results in August 2023 and it's not a minor change that was listed in a changelog. Google didn't take it away entirely, but it did narrow down the definition of who can get rich results in the future for FAQs – so from now on only authoritative and well-known government and health websites are eligible. Significant visibility was lost by every other website, blogs, agencies, ecommerce brands – no matter how well-optimised their markup was.

That's why people are increasingly searching the term "google ends faq rich results. They see their FAQ answers disappear from search results, they examine their Search Console information and they need a clear and concise response rather than a speculation. This article provides you with that answer in a straightforward manner, with Google's actual announcement.

Why Did Google Make the Change?

At the time, Google gave a good explanation of why and it was all about user experience. The business desired a more clean and constant search experience, as they didn't really require FAQ schema on too many pages. This led to more and more clutter in search results pages and, in extreme cases, the additional snippets proved to be more of a distraction than assistance when trying to find true answers to questions.

Google didn't choose to display FAQ snippets just anywhere, they wanted to keep this valuable space reserved for the highly trusted and authoritative sources. That would certainly apply to government and health websites, where users are often looking for solid answers about legal, financial or medical matters and that's something Google clearly wanted to safeguard rather than spread across an abundance of smaller websites.

Does FAQ Schema Still Matter?

It might seem that FAQ schema is dead, but that is not true for all sites, especially where Google rich results are not available. Even when it doesn't create a rich snippet, structured data still provides more context to search engines about the content of your page. While Google has not explicitly stated that it specifically uses structured data for newer AI-powered search functions, some SEO experts think that it does.

Should you opt to take the old FAQ schema off? Not necessarily, and there's no rush to go and touch it. Google has made it clear that having any structured data left over poses no risk whatsoever to your site's ranking, and in fact won't have any impact on how your site appears in the visual rich result it used to be shown in for non-eligible sites. If you already have it in place, you shouldn't worry about it; there is no harm in keeping it.

What Should You Do Now?

With no FAQ rich results, and ever since that was removed from Google's regular website index, you have to use a different SEO strategy now. Don't use FAQ schema as a traffic tool, use it for real quality content instead, as Google is becoming more selective about the sort of links it puts on top of these pages.

Also, keep monitoring your visibility closely and consistently. That's not to say that Search Console's FAQ and How-To search appearance tracking is gone, as it continues to track them even after this update, so it's a great idea to check on Search Console regularly, to identify unusual drops early on before they get out of hand. It's even more important these days, with the days of flashy rich snippets being important for smaller sites behind them.

The Bigger SEO Picture

Google ends FAQ rich results as part of a much larger, ongoing trend of platforms tightening control over which content types earn premium visibility in search. It's not only FAQs that Google has been doing this with in the past with recipe snippets and review stars and sitelinks over the years, usually citing the same reasoning around clutter and trust.

If you're a big-time SEO and want to do it right, don't rely on any one cool new thing that a platform might pull from under your feet at any moment. Instead, focus on the basics such as page speed, backlink quality and the quality of the content on the page and these are more likely to stay relevant in the face of Google's changing policies. This guide to implementing FAQ schema is more in-depth, taking a technical approach to how these fundamentals work with structured data.

Staying Ahead of the Next Update

Google ends FAQ rich results and other features of visibility regularly, often without prior notice, so, monitoring your site's search visibility and backlink health can suddenly be a real necessity. When the ranking or link changes suddenly, oftentimes it is not discovered for weeks, by which time it is too late to recover the positions, and much more difficult to do than catching the problem early.

Tools such as LinkWatcher can help you identify these changes in time and when the algorithmic change comes, it won't be a surprise to you anymore. If you need all the technical details straight from the horse's mouth, Google has posted more details about the original policy change in its announcement.

FAQs

Did Google completely remove FAQ rich results from search?

No, Google limited the FAQ rich results to only popular government or health websites. This visibility was lost at other sites, but remains for those categories.

Should I remove FAQPage structured data from my website?

Not necessarily. There's no penalty to having something left out of the structured data. You won't get the rich snippet, so you don't need to take the time to get rid of it if it already exists.