FAQs on FAQs: What Google Changed
What this covers: What Google's recent FAQ update actually removed from search pages, what it left intact, and why structured FAQ content still belongs in your strategy.
Who it's for: Small business owners, marketing directors, and content leads who caught a headline about Google and FAQs and wondered how it applied to them.
Key takeaway: A search display feature went away. The content practice behind it didn't.
Time to read: About 4 minutes.
No, Google Did Not Kill Your FAQs
Earlier this month, Google removed FAQ rich results from search results. In response, hyped up online chatter declared FAQs dead in the water. Some people panicked like the barn was on fire. Some people said out loud, “Good, now I can take writing FAQs off my list.”
Here's what actually happened: the expandable FAQ dropdowns that used to appear directly in search results stopped showing up. That’s it. What Google users see when they search is different, but the search intent signals FAQs send is the same.
There’s really no better way to dig into this than with some FAQs on FAQs.
What did Google change?
Google removed a specific search feature: the expandable accordion-style dropdowns that let people read FAQ answers directly on the search results page without clicking through to your site. That feature stopped appearing in Google Search earlier this year.
Does this affect the FAQs I have on my site?
No. Google confirmed that it still uses FAQ content to understand what your page is about. FAQ schema, the structured data markup that tells search engines your page contains question-and-answer content, was not removed or penalized. So, essentially, the display changed, but the signal did not.
What does this have to do with AI search?
The shift toward AI-powered search is fundamentally a shift toward search intent alignment — content performs best when it directly matches what people are searching for. FAQs send a clear search intent signal: they name the question, answer it clearly, and signal to both humans and machines what the page is about.
Should I remove FAQ schema from my site?
No. Google explicitly stated that FAQ schema doesn't cause problems or penalties. If your content is real and your schema accurately reflects what's on the page, leave it alone. If you added schema purely to chase the dropdown display, with thin or duplicated content behind it, clean it up. Content visibility problems don’t come from too much structured content, they come from content debt that doesn’t serve the audience.
So is there anything I need to do?
If you have real FAQ content on your site with accurate schema behind it, there’s nothing you need to do except maintain it. If you've been meaning to add FAQ content, revisit existing questions, or get a clearer picture of how your site's content structure is performing, this is a good time to do it. Not because of the update specifically, but because search keeps moving toward structured, question-aware content.
Your Site’s Visibility for AI Search
Search has been moving in one direction for a while now: toward content that directly answers real questions, structured in a way that both people and machines can parse. If your FAQs are real, your schema is accurate, and you're maintaining both, you're in good shape.
If you're not sure whether your site's content structure is actually working for you — not just technically, but in terms of content visibility and how search surfaces what you publish — that's worth finding out before the next update gives you something new to worry about. The Content Visibility Review starts with a free discovery call. Let's talk.
