Google confirmed on May 7 that FAQ rich results are officially dead. The expanded question-and-answer snippets that used to dominate search results pages are gone from standard organic listings, completing a deprecation process that started back in August 2023.
The change is not sudden. Google first restricted FAQ rich results to high-authority government and health sites in 2023, stripping them from everyone else. Now the feature is being removed entirely. Search Console reporting for FAQ structured data will wind down, and the Search Console API will stop returning FAQ-related data.
For businesses that invested in FAQ schema markup as an SEO tactic, the real estate those answers occupied in search results is gone. Some sites saw click-through rate lifts of 20-30% from FAQ rich results because the expanded snippets pushed competitors further down the page. That advantage has evaporated.
Why it matters
FAQ rich results were one of the few structured data features that smaller businesses could use to compete with larger players in search. A well-optimised FAQ section could earn a site significantly more visual real estate on the results page without needing higher domain authority or more backlinks.
The deprecation signals a broader shift in how Google thinks about search results. With AI Overviews expanding across more queries, Google is consolidating how it surfaces answers. FAQ schema was a way for sites to provide structured answers directly in search. Now Google wants to generate those answers itself.
The click-through rate lift some sites saw from FAQ rich results, now gone from standard search
For Australian businesses, the impact depends on how heavily you leaned on this tactic. If FAQ schema was a core part of your SEO playbook, you need to rethink how you earn visibility in search results.
What to do about it
Audit your structured data. If you have FAQ schema on key pages, it is not doing anything for you in search anymore. The markup is not harmful but it is dead weight.
Shift your structured data investment to formats Google still supports. HowTo schema, product schema and review schema still generate rich results. These are where your technical SEO effort should go.
Focus on earning visibility through AI Overviews and featured snippets instead. Write content that directly answers specific questions in a format that Google can extract for its AI-generated answers.
Review your content strategy. The FAQ sections on your pages still have value for users who land on them. Do not delete the content. Just stop expecting it to earn extra search real estate.
Track your click-through rates over the next 30 days. If pages that relied on FAQ rich results see a CTR drop, that confirms the impact and tells you where to prioritise alternative tactics.
