Is FAQ Schema Still Worth It in 2026?

What changed with FAQ rich results?

On 8 August 2023 Google announced changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results. FAQ results, the expandable questions under a search result, are now shown only for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. HowTo rich results were first limited to desktop and then, from 13 September 2023, no longer shown at all.

Google said three things site owners often miss: you don't need to remove the markup, unused structured data does no harm to your rankings, and the change is not a ranking change. In June 2025 Google phased out several more structured data features, including Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement and Vehicle Listing. FAQPage was not on that list; its rich result was already restricted.

So is FAQ schema still worth adding?

It depends on what you expect from it. If you want the expandable questions in Google, and you are not a major government or health site, it will not get you that. It can still be worth keeping for three honest reasons:

1. It is valid, standard markup. FAQPage is a schema.org type, so any system that reads structured data can see your questions and answers as clean pairs.
2. It costs little if you already have an FAQ. Generate it from the visible questions, as we do on this blog, so the two never drift apart.
3. The FAQ itself is the real value. Short, direct answers to the questions people ask are what search features and AI answers can quote. The markup only labels them.

Don't add FAQ markup for questions that are not on the page, and don't turn every paragraph into a question. Google's structured data guidelines require markup to describe visible content, and breaking them can cost a page its rich result eligibility.

A note on our own tool: SEO AI Assistant's AEO score has a "FAQ section" check that passes when a page has FAQPage markup with at least 8 questions. It measures whether a page is organised as clear questions and answers, which helps answer engines. It is not a promise of a Google rich result, and our scoring method says so.

Do AI chatbots read FAQ schema?

We have not seen OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity or Microsoft publish a rule that their answers use FAQPage markup. Their crawlers read the page's HTML, and a visible question with a direct answer below it is what they can quote. So treat the visible FAQ as the part that matters for AI answers, and the markup as a tidy extra. Google says the same for its own AI features: no special schema is needed (see how to get featured in AI Overviews).

Which schema types still matter in 2026?

These types still have rich results or a clear use in Google's search gallery. Use the ones that describe what your page really is.

For a how-to page, a numbered list of steps in the HTML does the job HowTo markup used to do. SEO AI Assistant's "How-to content" check passes on either.

FAQPage JSON-LD example

Place this in the page's <head> or body, with the same questions and answers that readers see. See Google's FAQPage documentation for the required properties.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [{
    "@type": "Question",
    "name": "How long does delivery take?",
    "acceptedAnswer": {
      "@type": "Answer",
      "text": "Orders ship in 1 to 2 working days and arrive in 3 to 5."
    }
  }]
}
</script>

How to check which schema types are missing

1. See what the page has. SEO AI Assistant's Schema readiness panel lists every JSON-LD type it finds on the page you are viewing.
2. Compare with what the page is. A product page without Product markup, or a blog post without Article markup, is the gap to fix first.
3. Validate it. Paste the URL into Google's Rich Results Test for Google features, or the Schema Markup Validator for any schema.org type.
4. Re-check after deploys. Markup often disappears when a theme or plugin changes. TrackLens Pro's SEO diff compares the JSON-LD between two snapshots of a page, so you can see when a type was removed.

Sources

• Google Search Central Blog: Changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results (Aug 2023)
• Google Search Central Blog: Simplifying the search results page (Jun 2025)
• Google Search Central: FAQPage structured data
• Google Search Central: General structured data guidelines
• Google Search Central: Structured data search gallery
• schema.org: FAQPage