FAQ rich results removed by Google: what actually disappeared, and when
Google removed FAQ rich results on May 7, 2026. For nearly every commercial website in Quebec, there is nothing to lose: the display had already been reserved for authoritative government and health sites since August 2023. The markup can stay in place, and the question-and-answer format keeps all of its value.
The announced timeline is accurate, and it unfolded in three stages. On May 7, 2026, the collapsible question blocks disappear from search results. In June 2026, the matching report leaves Search Console and the Rich Results Test stops validating them. In August 2026, data of this type comes out of the Search Console API.
What is missing from almost every write-up on the subject
The May 2026 removal did not take much away, because most of it had already been lost three years earlier. Google first restricted the display of FAQ rich results in April 2023, then limited it in August 2023 to government and health sites recognized as authoritative.
In other words, a Quebec commercial site checking today what it lost on May 7, 2026 will find that it had not displayed an FAQ rich result since 2023. The subject calls for a check in Search Console, not for an intervention.
The Schema.org FAQPage type remains valid. Markup already in place causes no problem and does not need to be removed. Removing it costs development time for zero gain.
The practical decision
FAQ markup no longer serves to earn an enhanced display in Google results. So it is time to stop selling it and buying it as a display lever, and to remove that promise from the proposals that still contain it.
What remains true, on the other hand, comes from the form rather than the markup. A question asked the way a buyer asks it, followed by a direct and complete answer, is the format models pick up most easily in their answers. That value depends on no structured data: it depends on the structure of the text.
So we keep FAQs in pages, for the reader in a hurry and for extraction. The writing method that makes these blocks easy to reuse is described in our analysis of the answer-first structure.
The check, ten minutes
- In Search Console: look at whether the FAQ type still showed in your search appearances before May 2026. In most cases, it did not.
- In your pages: leave the FAQPage markup where it is. It remains valid and has no negative effect.
- In your proposals and reports: remove any promise of an enhanced display tied to FAQs.
- In your content: keep the question and direct answer format, which serves the reader and extraction by models.
A proposal that still sells FAQ markup to gain space in Google results describes a display that has not existed since May 2026, and that had already been closed to commercial sites since 2023.
The structured data types that still produce a display, and those that no longer do, are reviewed in our analysis of structured data markup. The general framework for visibility in generated answers is in optimizing for answer engines.
- Google Search Central, FAQ structured data documentation, deprecation note, accessed September 2026.
- Google Search Central, history of display restrictions on FAQ rich results, April 2023 and August 2023.
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