Rich results
Search results enhanced with extra visual or interactive elements generated from structured data, such as star ratings, prices…
SERP FeaturesFAQ rich results removal
FAQ and HowTo rich result deprecation
Google's 2023 change restricting FAQ rich results to well-known authoritative government and health sites and removing HowTo rich results entirely.
In full
Announced in August 2023 as part of simplifying results, FAQ rich results ceased to be shown regularly for most sites, and HowTo rich results were removed from desktop and then dropped from Search Console reporting and the Rich Results Test. Google stated existing markup does not need to be removed because unused structured data causes no harm, but it also produces no visible benefit. Teams should not invest in FAQPage or HowTo markup for SERP appearance, though FAQPage may still be useful as plain semantic description.
Example
A retailer removes 6,000 auto-generated FAQ blocks written solely to trigger a rich result that no longer appears.
Related terms
Structured data
Machine-readable annotations on a page, usually Schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, that describe entities and make pages eligible for rich…
Schema.org
A collaborative vocabulary of types and properties for structured data on the web, founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex in 2011.
SERP
The page a search engine returns for a query, combining organic results with ads, rich results, AI-generated answers and vertical modules.
Rich Results Test
Google's tool for checking whether a page's structured data qualifies for rich results, run against the rendered page.