Tags and structured data: what Google actually shows
The title shown in Google's results is generated automatically and does not always match the one you wrote. Structured data, for its part, makes a page eligible for a rich result without ever guaranteeing one. These two facts change the budget it is reasonable to spend on them.
- Google states that the generation of displayed titles is fully automated and that it cannot manually change them for a given site.
- Structured data makes a feature possible; it does not make it certain. Google documents this in black and white.
- Since 7 May 2026, FAQ rich results no longer appear at all in Google, including for the government and health sites that had kept access to them. Markup billed for this result no longer returns anything.
- A manual action on structured data removes eligibility for the rich result without affecting ranking. The risk is commercial, not technical.
- The rule that explains most rejections fits in one sentence: never mark up what is not visible on the page.
On this page
Title link
The title link is the clickable text that appears at the top of a result in Google. It is distinct from the title tag, which is the code written in the page. Google documents that its generation is fully automated: the engine draws on the content of the page and on the references that point to it, then picks what best describes the result for a given search. The tag you write is therefore a suggestion, not a command.
What Google does with your titles
This is the most common source of frustration for a management team looking at its own results: the title shown is not the one that was written and paid for. The documentation explains why, and the answer removes any illusion of control. For a management team, the question becomes simple: does this line item still deserve a budget, at what cost to the client, and how much.
Google states that the generation of title links is fully automated and takes into account both the content of the page and the references that point to it. It also specifies that it cannot manually change the title link of any particular site. What remains possible is to improve the quality of the source the engine has to work from, by following its best practices.
Two mistakes genuinely cost clicks, and Google names them. The first is the identical title repeated across an entire site, of the "cheap products" kind, which makes two pages impossible for a buyer to tell apart. The second is the boilerplate title, long and varying by only a single element from one page to the next. Both flaws are common on catalogues, and fixing them costs a few hours for a direct effect on the click-through rate, and therefore on sales.
Google has to recrawl and reprocess a page to take a change into account, which can take from a few days to a few weeks. Judging the effect of a title rewrite after three days measures nothing. Set the review date at the moment of publication, and decide the budget against that horizon.
What to settle when this line item appears on an invoice
This is a low-cost job whose price varies enormously from one vendor to another, often because the budget includes markup that no longer produces anything. The question is not whether to do it, but what exactly the client is paying for, and what that spend returns.
- How many of our pages currently carry an identical or boilerplate title?
- Does the markup we are billed for correspond to a rich result Google still offers?
- What is the current click-through rate of our twenty most-viewed pages, before the work begins?
- On what date will we read the effect, given that recrawling takes several weeks?
- If the click-through rate has not moved by that date, what do we cut?
The answer that holds up first pulls your duplicate titles and your starting click-through rate. An evasive answer sells full-site markup, promises rich results, or bills a title optimization without measuring the starting point, which leaves the budget impossible to arbitrate.
Deciding what, in this job, still produces a measurable result comes down to the real state of your pages. A 90-minute consultation settles it, with a written summary your team can execute.
What structured data really delivers
The commercial misunderstanding is here, and it is expensive because it concerns work billed by the volume of pages.
Google is explicit: it does not guarantee that your structured data will appear in results, even if the page is correctly marked up according to its testing tool. Its wording deserves to be quoted in a meeting, since it settles the matter: using structured data makes a feature possible, it does not guarantee that it will be present. The engine chooses what it judges most useful depending on the search, the device and other variables.
The clearest case is that of FAQs. Google had first, in 2023, restricted them to recognized government and health sites, then removed them entirely on 7 May 2026: they no longer appear for anyone. The corresponding Search Console report disappears in June 2026 and support in the API in August 2026. FAQ markup sold to obtain this display no longer produces the promised result, and never will again. Google does specify, however, that unused markup causes no problem; it simply has no visible effect. Continuing to bill for it on that basis is a line item with nothing in return, which the client pays for without knowing it.
| Documented rule | What it prevents |
|---|---|
| Do not mark up content invisible to the reader | The most frequent reason for rejection |
| Do not mark up misleading content, such as fake reviews | A manual action, and therefore a loss of eligibility |
| Provide up-to-date information | Removal of the display for outdated content |
| Do not block marked-up pages from crawlers | Paid markup the engine never reads |
| Use JSON-LD, microdata or RDFa | An unsupported format, and therefore ignored |
What stays in-house: the list of pages that matter commercially, and the real data to display, prices, availability, lead times. Markup that announces a price different from the one on the page is the surest way to lose eligibility. What gets delegated: the survey of duplicate titles, the rewrite, the choice of markup types still worth using, the technical validation and the reading of the click-through rate before and after. A team that supplies its twenty commercial pages gets a two-day job. A team that asks to mark up the entire site gets an invoice by volume.
What is still worth paying for
Three things, in order of return, and a fourth that has changed its reason for existing. Only one of the four has an effect measured in clicks, and therefore in sales.
Fix duplicate and boilerplate titles. This is the only line item in this job whose effect on the click-through rate is direct and measurable. On a catalogue, it is also the most profitable, because the flaw there is systematic.
Mark up what still yields a rich result. Products, reviews, recipes, events, job postings depending on the sector. The list of features offered changes, and a serious vendor checks it before billing rather than after. That spares the client paying for a display removed two years ago.
Write descriptions that sell the page. They do not change ranking, they change the decision to click. It is the same logic of message continuity as the one covered in continuity between the ad and the page.
FAQ markup keeps a use, but its nature has changed. It has produced no rich result since 7 May 2026, while Google states it continues to use it to understand pages and other engines and assistants still read it. It is an investment in citability, not in appearance in the classic results. A vendor still selling it for the display is selling a feature Google has removed.
The general framework is set out in the complete guide to search, site checks in technical search readiness, the structure that makes a page citable in the answer-first structure, and the inventory of what exists in how to read an audit once delivered.
Building a presence that produces customers rather than an inventory of tags is at the heart of the Attract customers with SEO and AI goal.
Already running a marketing team? See how we plug in as reinforcement on search engine optimization.
Frequently asked questions about tags and structured data
Why does Google change the title of my pages?
Because the generation of the displayed title is fully automated. Google draws on the content of the page and on the references that point to it, then keeps what best describes the result for a given search. It also states that it cannot manually change the displayed title for any particular site.
Does structured data improve ranking?
No. It makes a page eligible for a rich result, with no guarantee that it appears. Google writes that using structured data makes a feature possible without guaranteeing its presence, even when the markup passes its testing tool. A manual action on this point removes eligibility without affecting ranking. A markup budget justified by a ranking gain is a mistaken trade-off.
Is FAQ markup still good for anything?
Not at all for the rich result. Google removed this feature on 7 May 2026, for all sites. The markup keeps a use, since Google states it continues to use it to understand pages and other engines and assistants still read it. It is a different objective, and it must be sold as such.
What is the most frequent mistake?
Marking up content that is not visible to the person reading the page. Google explicitly forbids it: if the markup describes an element, the body of the page must describe the same element. It is the main cause of rejections, and it renders work already paid for useless.
- Google Search Central, Influencing title links in Google Search, official documentation, accessed July 2026.
- Google Search Central, General structured data guidelines, official documentation, accessed July 2026.
- Google Search Central, Mark up FAQs with structured data, deprecation notice dated 7 May 2026, accessed July 2026.
- Google Search Central, Changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results, August 2023, which began the restriction.
Geneviève puts the strategy for your engagement into action. She leads all our web development projects: Shopify, WordPress and the new ways of building a site with AI. She manages our team of developers and translates your business needs into technical language. She runs your organic search (SEO), your visibility in AI answers (GEO) and your site's conversion rate optimization (CRO). Her work is at the heart of three goals: Attract customers with SEO and AI, Improve your site's conversion, and Strengthen your visibility in AI answers. With Gabriel, she also builds the landing pages for your advertising campaigns. She writes mainly about SEO, AI visibility and web design.
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