Why your FAQ rich results stopped showing
Since August 2023, Google only shows FAQ rich results for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. If your site is not one of those, your FAQ dropdowns disappeared because of that policy, not because your markup is broken.
What changed
In August 2023 Google announced it would reduce the visibility of two rich result types: FAQ results would only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites, and HowTo results would be removed. For almost every business, agency and publisher, FAQ dropdowns in search results ended there.
How to confirm this is your problem
- Test the page in the Rich Results Test. If the FAQPage markup parses without errors, the markup is fine.
- Check that the questions and answers on the page are visible to users and match the markup. Hidden FAQ content was never eligible.
- If both are true and you are not a government or major health site, the policy is the reason. There is nothing to fix in the code.
Should you keep FAQPage markup?
Keeping it does no harm if the questions and answers are visible on the page. FAQPage is still a valid Schema.org type, and it describes the question-and-answer structure of the page to any system that reads structured data. Do not expect a visual result in Google from it.
What still matters more is the content itself: a clear question as a heading, a direct answer in the first sentence, then detail. That format is easy for both search engines and AI assistants to quote, with or without markup.
Minimal valid example
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Do you offer weekend appointments?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Yes. We are open Saturdays from 9am to 2pm."
}
}]
}
</script>
Source: Google: FAQ (FAQPage) structured data.
Frequently asked questions
- Is my FAQ markup broken if the rich result disappeared?
- Usually not. Since August 2023 Google shows FAQ rich results only for well-known government and health websites. Test the page in the Rich Results Test; if it parses, the markup is fine.
- Will removing FAQPage markup hurt my rankings?
- No. Structured data is not a ranking factor on its own. Removing or keeping FAQPage markup will not change rankings, as long as the visible content stays the same.
- Did HowTo rich results change too?
- Yes. In the same 2023 announcement Google said HowTo rich results would be removed from search results.