Every published page on this site carries FAQPage schema, and Google has shown a FAQ rich result for none of them. Search Console’s own appearance report is the source, and it lists two appearance types across ninety days.
That isn’t a markup fault. It’s what happens now, and it’s worth knowing before anybody spends another sprint adding the same schema.
The markup still earns something. It stopped earning the thing most people add it for.
What the Appearance Report Shows
Search Console reports which special result types a site appeared in. Ours returns two rows for the last ninety days.
| Appearance type | Impressions |
|---|---|
| Translated result | 15 |
| Product snippets | 7 |
| FAQ rich result | None recorded |
270 published pages carry valid FAQPage markup and the report has no FAQ row at all. Not a low number. No row.
Why the Row Is Missing
It’s missing because Google narrowed FAQ rich results to a small set of sites. The display was restricted to well-known authoritative government and health sources, and everybody else stopped being eligible.
Nothing was announced about the markup being invalid, and validators still pass it. Eligibility and validity are separate things, which is why teams keep shipping schema that no longer buys the result they wanted.
The rollout finished before most audits caught up
Plenty of SEO checklists still list FAQ schema under ways to win more space in the results page. That advice describes a version of Google that no longer displays it for commercial sites.
What the Markup Still Does
Three things survive, and only one of them was ever about Google’s display layer.
- Machine-readable structure. A question paired with its answer is easy for a retrieval system to lift.
- Plainer answers. Writing a real FAQ block commits you to short, direct answers.
- A readable data graph. The entity relationships around it stay legible, which is the same argument set out in entity SEO.
The first is the one that matters commercially now. Our own work on how AI crawlers pick sources covers what these systems read on a page, and clean question-and-answer pairs sit near the top of that list.
What This Changes About Adding It
You should still add it, and you should stop expecting a visual return from it.
Add it where the questions are real
A block of five invented questions nobody asks is padding with markup wrapped around it. Pull the questions from support tickets, sales calls or the question-form queries in your own Search Console.
Stop treating it as a SERP tactic
If a proposal justifies FAQ schema by the space it wins in results, the justification is out of date. The honest case for it today is machine readability, and that case is strong enough on its own.
Judge it by citation, not by appearance
The measurable question is whether AI answers quote the passage, not whether Google draws an accordion. That distinction is set out in AI citation ranking factors.
How to Check Your Own Site in Two Minutes
You can run the same check we did, and it needs nothing beyond Search Console.
- The Search Appearance filter. Open Performance, add it, and the report lists every special result type your site has appeared in.
- The FAQ row. If there isn’t one, your markup is not producing rich results, whatever a validator says.
- The Enhancements section. A valid-items count there confirms the markup parses, which is a different claim from being displayed.
Most commercial sites will find what we found. That’s the expected outcome rather than a sign something is broken.
What This Does Not Prove
One property, one ninety-day window. That’s enough to settle what this site earns and not enough to describe every site on the web.
It doesn’t prove FAQ rich results never render anywhere. Google kept the display for a narrow set of sources, and a government health page may well still show one.
It also measures the wrong half of the argument on purpose. Search Console reports what Google displayed, and says nothing about whether an AI answer quoted the passage, which is the return the markup is now defended on.
What would settle that half
Tracking whether your answers appear inside AI responses, which is a different instrument entirely and reads the answer rather than the results page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does FAQ schema still work in 2026
It works as machine-readable structure and it does not produce FAQ rich results for most sites. Google restricted that display to authoritative government and health sources, so commercial pages stopped being eligible.
Should I remove FAQPage markup
No. It costs nothing to keep, it stays readable to retrieval systems, and removing it gives back the one benefit that still applies.
Why does my markup validate but show nothing
It happens because validity and eligibility are different tests. A validator checks that the markup parses correctly, and eligibility is Google’s separate decision about whether to display that type at all.
Do AI answer engines read FAQ schema
They read the page, and structured question-and-answer pairs are among the easiest passages to lift. Treat the markup as help for that rather than as a route to a search feature.
What replaced FAQ rich results
Nothing that you can add markup for. The space went to AI overviews and other generated summaries, which draw on the page rather than on a declared block.
Check the Appearance Report Before the Next Sprint
Two minutes in Search Console settles what a quarter of schema work is buying. The markup still deserves a place on the page, not on the list of things that win results-page real estate.