Does Google still show FAQ rich results?

No. Google's documentation states that as of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results no longer appear in Google Search. Before that, from August 2023, they were limited to well-known, authoritative government and health websites, so most businesses had already lost them.

Should I remove FAQ schema from my website?

You do not have to. Google said there is no need to change anything, and unused markup does not hurt. Remove it if it no longer matches the visible questions, or if maintaining it by hand is a chore. Keep it if your site generates it automatically from the page.

Does a FAQ page help SEO?

Indirectly, yes. Good answers can be quoted in featured snippets, People Also Ask and AI answers, and they help visitors decide to contact you. A FAQ page alone will not fix weak service pages, missing reviews or technical problems.

How many questions should a FAQ page have?

As many as customers genuinely ask, usually somewhere between eight and twenty for a small business. Group them by topic, such as pricing, booking and areas, and move any question that needs a very long answer to its own page.

Is FAQ content useful for ChatGPT and AI search?

Yes, clear question-and-answer content is easy for AI tools to understand and quote. There is no guarantee of a mention, but plainly stated facts about your prices, areas and policies give these tools accurate material to work with.

What is the difference between FAQPage and QAPage schema?

FAQPage is for questions and answers written by the site owner. QAPage is for pages where one question is asked and users submit answers, such as a forum or community thread. A business FAQ uses FAQPage.

Web & Software

FAQ Page and FAQ Schema for Small Business Websites: What Still Works After Google Dropped FAQ Rich Results

By ITCM Team · Updated November 2026

A good FAQ page answers the questions customers ask before they call you: price ranges, service areas, timing, what happens on the visit, and what you do not do. FAQPage schema is code that labels those questions and answers for machines. The facts have changed: in August 2023 Google limited FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health websites, and since May 7, 2026 Google no longer shows FAQ rich results in Search at all. The FAQ content itself is still worth writing, because it helps visitors decide, feeds AI answers and featured snippets, and cuts repetitive calls. This guide shows which questions to answer, where to put them, and how to treat the schema in 2026.

Key takeaways

Since May 7, 2026, Google shows no FAQ rich results for any site; from August 2023 it had already limited them to well-known government and health sites.
FAQ content still helps: customers read it, AI tools and featured snippets quote it, and it reduces the same five phone questions.
Pull questions from real calls, emails, reviews and Google's People Also Ask boxes, not from a template.
Put service-specific questions on each service page; keep a central FAQ page for policies, payments and areas served.
FAQPage markup is optional now: harmless if it matches the visible text, but not a ranking trick.
Write the direct answer in the first sentence, then the detail.

What is a FAQ page actually for?

A FAQ page exists to remove doubt at the moment someone is deciding whether to contact you. For a small service business, that doubt is usually practical: Do you come to my area? Roughly what will it cost? Can you come today? Do you need me home? Are you licensed and insured? If the answers are missing, people either call to ask, which costs you time, or they go back to Google and pick a competitor who answered.

A FAQ that answers the awkward questions honestly, including what you do not offer, builds trust and filters out poor-fit leads before they reach your phone.

What happened to FAQ rich results in Google?

FAQ rich results were the expandable question-and-answer drop-downs under a search listing. Google pulled them back in two steps, and the second step finished the job.

Date	What Google changed	What it means for a small business
August 8, 2023	FAQ rich results limited to well-known, authoritative government and health websites	Ordinary business sites effectively stopped getting FAQ drop-downs
May 7, 2026	Google's documentation states FAQ rich results no longer appear in Google Search	No site, of any type, gets the FAQ rich result
June 2026	FAQ search appearance, rich result report and Rich Results Test support removed	Search Console no longer reports FAQ markup
August 2026	FAQ rich result support removed from the Search Console API	Reporting tools that pulled FAQ data lose it

Why does FAQ content still matter in 2026?

Losing the rich result removed a visual bonus, not the value of the answers:

Visitors read them. Someone comparing three electricians on a phone will scroll to the questions before calling.
AI answers and LLM tools pull from them. Google's AI features, ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity tend to quote pages that state a question and answer it plainly.
Featured snippets and People Also Ask still exist. A concise answer under a question-style heading is exactly the format those boxes lift.
Bing still reads structured data. Microsoft's Fabrice Canel said in 2025 that schema markup helps Microsoft's LLMs behind Copilot understand content.
They cut repeat calls. If your team answers the same questions about parking, deposits or call-out fees every day, a written answer saves hours.

Which questions should a small business FAQ answer?

The best questions come from your own customers, not from a list of generic ideas. Spend an hour gathering them before you write anything:

Phone calls and messages: note the first question people ask for two weeks. That list is gold.
Emails and quote requests: look for questions you answered more than twice.
Reviews, yours and competitors': complaints reveal worries ("they did not say there was a call-out fee") you can answer up front.
Google's People Also Ask boxes: search your main service plus your city and note the questions Google expands.
Your staff: whoever answers the phone knows the top ten questions by heart.

One FAQ page or FAQs on every service page?

Usually both, with different jobs. Questions about a specific service belong on that service page, where the visitor already is and where they strengthen the page for that topic. Questions that apply to the whole business, such as payment methods, cancellations, guarantees and areas served, belong on one central FAQ page linked from the footer and the contact page.

If a single question deserves a long answer, such as how much a bathroom remodel costs, it may deserve its own guide rather than a FAQ entry.

Placement	Best for	Example
Service page FAQ block	Questions about that one service	Drain cleaning: Do you use cameras? Is hydro-jetting safe for old pipes?
Central FAQ page	Policies, payments, areas, guarantees	Do you charge a call-out fee? Which towns do you cover?
Dedicated guide or page	Questions that need a long, detailed answer	How much does a full house repipe cost?

How do you write FAQ answers that get used?

Write the question the way a customer would say it, then answer it in the first sentence. "Do you charge for estimates?" should start with "No, estimates are free within our service area" or "Yes, a diagnostic fee applies and is credited to the repair", followed by the conditions. That direct opening is what people skim for and what AI tools and featured snippets lift.

Keep each answer specific to your business. Give real price ranges, name the towns you cover, and say what is excluded. Update answers when prices or policies change; an outdated answer is worse than none. If your pages are not appearing in search at all, the FAQ is rarely the cause; check the basics in our guide to why your website isn't ranking.

FAQPage schema explained in plain words

FAQPage markup is usually added as a block of JSON-LD in the page's code. You do not need to read code to understand what it says. It declares that the vocabulary comes from schema.org and that the page type is FAQPage. It then has a field called mainEntity that holds a list of questions. Each item in that list is a Question with a name, which is the question text exactly as shown on the page, and an acceptedAnswer, which is an Answer whose text field holds the answer as shown on the page.

A few rules apply. The questions and answers in the markup must match what visitors can see on the page. FAQPage is for questions you, the business, wrote and answered; pages where users submit their own answers, like a forum, use a different type called QAPage. And the answers should be genuinely informative, not adverts in question form. Most SEO plugins can generate it from the visible FAQ.

Should you still add FAQPage schema after 2026?

It is optional. Google did not ask sites to remove the markup, and Google's John Mueller said there is no need to change anything, although you can remove it if you added it only for the rich result. FAQPage remains a valid schema.org type, and other search engines and AI systems can still read it.

Our practical view: if your FAQ markup is generated automatically from visible content, leave it; it costs nothing and keeps your questions machine-readable. Do not spend money adding it by hand across a site expecting a ranking lift, and do not keep markup that no longer matches the page. Your time is better spent on the fundamentals in our technical SEO checklist, and on the things that still drive local visibility, such as accurate LocalBusiness details and a complete Google Business Profile.

FAQ examples for local service businesses

The strongest local FAQs answer questions that tie to money, time and trust. A few starting points:

Plumber: Do you charge a call-out fee at night or on weekends? Can you give a price over the phone? Do you replace water heaters the same day?
Salon: Do you take walk-ins? What is your cancellation policy? Do I need a patch test before coloring?
Clinic: Which insurance plans do you accept? Do you see new patients this week? Is there parking or step-free access?
Cleaning company: Do I need to be home? Do you bring your own supplies? What if I am not happy with the clean?
Restaurant: Do you take reservations for large groups? Which dishes are gluten-free? Is there outdoor seating?

FAQ page checklist

Run through this before you publish, and again every few months. For the wider local picture, pair it with our guide to local SEO for small business.

Questions come from real calls, messages, reviews and People Also Ask, not a generic template.
Each answer starts with a direct yes, no, number or range.
Service questions sit on service pages; business-wide questions sit on one FAQ page.
Prices, areas and policies match what your staff say on the phone.
Each answer ends with a next step where useful: call, book or get a quote.
Any FAQPage markup matches the visible text exactly, or is removed.
The FAQ page is linked from the footer, contact page and relevant service pages.
The page loads fast and reads well on a phone; run a free website health check to confirm.

How ITCM builds FAQs into your site

When we build a website, we ask what customers ask you most and write those answers into the service pages and a central FAQ, in English, Arabic or both. Because every ITCM site comes with an admin panel you own, you can add or edit questions yourself when prices or policies change, and any markup updates with the visible text. We build the site first and show you a working demo on a link; you pay $150 one-time only if you are happy with it. If you want ongoing help with search visibility, see our SEO services.

Frequently asked questions

Does Google still show FAQ rich results?: No. Google's documentation states that as of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results no longer appear in Google Search. Before that, from August 2023, they were limited to well-known, authoritative government and health websites, so most businesses had already lost them.
Should I remove FAQ schema from my website?: You do not have to. Google said there is no need to change anything, and unused markup does not hurt. Remove it if it no longer matches the visible questions, or if maintaining it by hand is a chore. Keep it if your site generates it automatically from the page.
Does a FAQ page help SEO?: Indirectly, yes. Good answers can be quoted in featured snippets, People Also Ask and AI answers, and they help visitors decide to contact you. A FAQ page alone will not fix weak service pages, missing reviews or technical problems.
How many questions should a FAQ page have?: As many as customers genuinely ask, usually somewhere between eight and twenty for a small business. Group them by topic, such as pricing, booking and areas, and move any question that needs a very long answer to its own page.
Is FAQ content useful for ChatGPT and AI search?: Yes, clear question-and-answer content is easy for AI tools to understand and quote. There is no guarantee of a mention, but plainly stated facts about your prices, areas and policies give these tools accurate material to work with.
What is the difference between FAQPage and QAPage schema?: FAQPage is for questions and answers written by the site owner. QAPage is for pages where one question is asked and users submit answers, such as a forum or community thread. A business FAQ uses FAQPage.

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