June 24, 2026

Post 5: Google Just Killed FAQ Rich Results: What It Means for Your Local Business

marketingnavii@gmail.com

Google killed the FAQ dropdown, so do not panic and strip your FAQs

Here is the short version. On May 7, 2026, Google stopped showing FAQ rich results, those expandable question dropdowns under your search listing, for every kind of website. But do not rip the FAQs off your pages. The dropdown is gone. The reason FAQs matter is not. Your questions and answers are exactly the kind of clear, quotable content that AI engines like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity pull from when they answer your customers. Here is what changed, what to do, and why your FAQ work still pays off.

What actually changed

This rolled out in stages, and the dates matter if you track your own reports. Each point below has a referring link so you can read the source.

May 7, 2026. FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search. This applied to every site type, including the government and health sites that had kept the feature since 2023. The expandable Q&A dropdown under your listing is simply gone.
June 2026. Google is removing the FAQ report and FAQ support in the Rich Results Test and Search Console. The old way you checked whether a page would show a dropdown is going away.
August 2026. FAQ data in the Search Console API is removed. This only matters if you or your team pull that data into a dashboard or report.
What did not change. FAQPage is still a valid schema type, Google still reads it to understand your page, and Google says leaving the markup in place causes no problems. So nothing on your site breaks.

Google did not publish a reason, but this fits a clear pattern. It removed HowTo rich results in 2023 and pruned several other markup features in 2025. Each time, a feature that gave outside content extra space on the results page disappears, and Google’s own AI answers take that space instead.

Why this is actually good news for a local business

The dropdown was decoration. The questions and answers underneath are the asset, and that asset is worth more in the AI era, not less.

The game shifted to citations. Getting cited by AI no longer tracks with ranking. An Ahrefs study in early 2026 found only about 38% of pages cited in Google AI Overviews rank in the top 10 of regular search, down from roughly 76% a year earlier. Clear answers, not just rankings, are what win citations now.
FAQs match how people ask AI. A good FAQ is the cleanest question-in, answer-out format there is, which is exactly how people talk to ChatGPT and AI search. That makes your FAQ a citation asset, not a dropdown trick.
The content is the engine. Some studies suggest pages with FAQ markup show up more often in AI Overviews, but the honest consensus is that the visible content does the heavy lifting. Write the answers well first, then keep the schema as low-effort insurance.

What to do about it this week

This is mostly a quick cleanup, not a big project. A few moves cover it.

Keep your real FAQs. If the questions and answers are genuine and visible on the page, leave them and the schema exactly where they are. There is no penalty for keeping valid markup.
Clean up the fakes. If you ever stuffed FAQ schema onto a page with no real or visible Q&A just to win the dropdown, take it off now. Fake markup is the only kind worth removing.
Stop measuring the dropdown. Export any FAQ rich result report you want to keep before June 2026, then shift your attention to your AI Overview impressions and your page-level click-through rate.
Write FAQs in customer language. Use the real questions your customers type, three to five per page, with one to three sentence answers. People-also-ask boxes and your own call notes are goldmines for these.
Do not forget your Google Business Profile. Google Business Profile Q&A is a separate feature and was not touched by this change. Seed the real questions your customers ask and post owner-verified answers. It is one of the easier local wins out there.

How we think about this at Marketing Navii

This change does not move us off our method one bit. We build AI-ready proof pages and FAQs for clients because clear, quotable answers are what get a local business named by AI. The Moving Guys reached 99% of their audience on $0 in ad spend, and Air Command landed the number one spot in Hartford, by getting the fundamentals right rather than chasing whatever SERP trick was popular that month. Confirm the current numbers before you republish them.

Common questions about the FAQ rich results change

Did Google delete FAQ schema?

No. Google removed the FAQ rich result, the expandable dropdown in Search, on May 7, 2026. FAQPage is still a valid schema type, Google still reads it, and leaving it on your page causes no problems.

Should I remove the FAQ schema from my pages?

Only if it is fake. Keep FAQ schema wherever the questions and answers are real and visible on the page. Remove it only where it was stuffed onto a page with no genuine FAQ just to win the old dropdown.

If the dropdown is gone, why keep writing FAQs?

Because the content is what AI engines extract. Clear question-and-answer text is exactly what Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity pull from, and that matters more now that being cited by AI no longer tracks with ranking.

Does this affect my Google Business Profile questions?

No. Google Business Profile Q&A is a separate feature and is not affected by this change. Seeding real questions and posting owner-verified answers there is still one of the easier local wins.

How do I know if my FAQ is helping now?

Stop watching FAQ rich result impressions, since that report is going away in 2026. Track your AI Overview impressions in Google Search Console and your page-level click-through rate instead.

3. LocalBusiness schema (site-wide)

Want a quick read on your FAQ pages?

Not sure what is helping and what is dead weight? That is exactly the kind of thing we sort out at Marketing Navii. We will tell you which FAQs are pulling their weight, which to clean up, and how to make your pages the answer AI gives. Book a free 20-minute navigation call and we will look at your pages together.