Google Retired FAQ Rich Results. Here’s What Changed, and Why Your FAQ Page Still Matters

Google retired FAQ rich results. As of May 7, 2026, the expandable question dropdowns that once appeared under a site’s search result are gone for every website, including the government and health sites that kept them after 2023. Google documented the change in its Search Central changelog. Your on-page answers still matter. The Google snippet does not exist anymore.

What exactly did Google change?

Google stopped showing the FAQ rich result: the stacked, expandable questions that used to sit under your listing in search results. This is a change to how Google displays your page, not a change to your page itself. The questions on your site are untouched. Only Google’s special search appearance for them was removed.

When did this happen, and how did Google announce it?

It came in two stages. In August 2023, Google cut FAQ rich results down to well-known government and health sites only, and every other site lost them. Then, effective May 7, 2026, Google retired the feature completely, so no site shows it now. The 2026 change was posted in Google’s documentation changelog, not a full blog post.

Do I need to remove the FAQ schema from my site?

No. Google’s guidance since 2023 is that you don’t need to proactively remove it. Unused structured data doesn’t cause problems for Search, and it has no visible effect either. Leaving the FAQPage markup in place is harmless. Taking it out is optional tidying, not a repair your site needs.

Does keeping FAQ schema help me show up in AI answers?

Not in any way Google promises. Google’s own guidance says structured data "isn’t required for generative AI search," and there’s no special markup to add for it. Google ties structured-data value to rich-result eligibility, which FAQPage no longer has. So keeping the schema specifically to win AI answers is a bet Google itself does not back.

Google also doesn’t treat "answer engine optimization" as a separate craft. In its view, optimizing for its AI search is still ordinary SEO. You may see other tools claim FAQ markup feeds AI engines. Google doesn’t confirm that, so we won’t sell it to you as fact.

Here is the honest version. What any reader can use, a person or an AI, is the plain text sitting on your page. The schema was a formatting hint for one Google feature. That feature is gone. The words are what carry. Don’t spend a single afternoon trying to win the snippet back.

"The dropdown was never the point. When a customer types their actual question, what matters is that the answer is already on your page, in plain words."

Which structured data still earns a rich result?

Plenty of it. The FAQ retirement is narrow: it removed one appearance type. Other structured-data types are unaffected and still power rich results in Google Search, so the markup you use for products, articles, and reviews keeps doing its job.

What should you do now?

Very little, and none of it is urgent. Keep the questions and answers your customers actually ask, written as plain text on your page. Don’t try to resurrect the snippet. And point your structured-data effort at the markup types that still show up.

What does this mean at your front desk?

Nothing changes about the phone. A customer who wants your hours, your return policy, or whether you take walk-ins still asks the same questions. They just won’t see the answer pre-expanded under your Google result anymore.

So put those answers where they land: on your page in plain words, and in the mouth of whoever, or whatever, picks up when the phone rings. When someone calls to ask if you’re open on Labor Day, the win isn’t a schema tag. The win is that the answer comes back in one clear sentence, on the page and on the call. The dropdown is gone. The question isn’t.