16 Schema Types Google Stopped Showing (2023 to 2026), and What Still Works

On May 7, 2026, Google removed FAQ rich results from search. They no longer appear for anyone, including the government and health sites that had kept a limited version since 2023. Google updated a documentation notice, and Search Engine Journal covered it on May 10.

Many schema tools still list FAQ markup as a feature. Keeping it on your pages does your site no harm, but the markup no longer produces a search result.

FAQ is the latest entry on a longer list. Google has spent the past three years steadily trimming the structured data types that earn a display in search. Here is the full timeline, with each date you can check against Google’s own documentation updates log, followed by a list of the types that are no longer worth adding.

The deprecation timeline, 2023 to 2026

August and September 2023: HowTo ends, FAQ is restricted

Google announced in August 2023 that HowTo rich results were being removed. They left mobile in August and desktop on September 13, 2023, and were fully deprecated. The same announcement restricted FAQ rich results to “well-known, authoritative government and health websites.”

These were two of the most heavily marketed schema blocks in WordPress, the ones onboarding wizards pushed hardest, and they stopped earning a result for most sites in late 2023.

November 21, 2024: the sitelinks search box goes away

Google announced on October 21, 2024 that the sitelinks search box was being removed globally by November 21, 2024, because “usage has dropped.” The SearchAction and potentialAction markup now does nothing in Google. Regular sitelinks are unaffected, because they never needed markup in the first place.

Plugins had added SearchAction to homepages for a decade. Since November 2024 it has had no effect in Google.

June 10 to 12, 2025: seven types in one week

Google announced on June 12, 2025 that it was phasing out seven types: book actions, course info, ClaimReview (fact check), estimated salary, learning video, special announcement, and vehicle listing. In Google’s words, they are “not commonly used in Search” and the displays are “no longer providing significant additional value for users.” The phase-out ran over the following months. Google deleted the documentation for five of them on September 9, 2025, leaving the book actions and ClaimReview pages up. ClaimReview markup still feeds Google’s Fact Check Explorer tool.

The same week, Google added loyalty-program structured data for merchants. Seven display features left and one commerce feature arrived, which points to where structured data is heading.

November 5, 2025: practice problems, and a clarification

Practice problems structured data was deprecated, with Search Console and Rich Results Test support ending in January 2026. Dataset markup was clarified as feeding Dataset Search only, so it has no feature in general Search. The announcement read as more alarming than it was. Search Engine Journal made the case that Google is not reducing the use of structured data overall, only pruning the features Google itself called lesser-used. John Mueller, answering the question on Reddit, put it this way: “markup types come and go, but a precious few you should hold on to (like title, and meta robots).”

May 7, 2026: FAQ, fully removed

The government and health exception ended. FAQ rich results no longer appear at all. The FAQ search appearance, its Search Console rich result report, and Rich Results Test support all end in June 2026, and Search Console API support follows in August 2026. Existing markup can stay on pages without harm. It produces nothing in return.

Some confusion is likely through August as FAQ reports drop out of Search Console and site owners ask where the data went. The short answer is that the feature has been retired, and the markup no longer earns a result.

One reversal worth noting

There was one reversal. The November 2025 documentation update quietly removed the deprecation banner from book actions, which had been in the June 2025 batch. Its current status is unclear, neither confirmed dead nor clearly alive.

The detail matters for accuracy: not everything deprecated in June 2025 is settled. In practice it changes little. An unclear feature is a poor foundation, and skipping it is the sensible course either way.

There is also a naming trap. “Course info,” the per-course page enhancement, is gone, but Course list, the carousel, remains in Google’s supported gallery. Two features with similar names and different outcomes.

What is still supported, and what the pattern shows

Google’s search gallery as of June 2026 still supports a solid backbone: Article, Breadcrumb, Organization, Product (both product snippets and merchant listings), LocalBusiness, ProfilePage, Discussion forum, Event, Recipe, Video, Job posting, Review snippet, Course list, and a tail of niche types. WebSite and WebPage are not gallery features themselves. Both still do work elsewhere: Google reads WebSite markup on a home page to settle your site name, and WebPage is one of the types Google accepts for subscription and paywalled content markup.

Google keeps adding on one side of the ledger. ProfilePage and DiscussionForumPosting were added in November 2023, product variant markup arrived in February 2024, organization-level return-policy markup in June 2024, loyalty programs in June 2025, and a hasAdultConsideration product property on May 20, 2026.

The pattern is clear enough. Google tends to remove features that decorate the results page without commerce or entity value, and to invest in features that feed the Shopping Graph, the Knowledge Graph, and content understanding. The practical conclusion is to spend your effort on that backbone and leave the ornaments.

Types that are no longer worth adding

Here are 16 types that most ordinary sites can leave off. Of the 16, 10 were formally deprecated by Google between 2023 and 2026, and the other six were never removed, but they never applied to a normal site in the first place.

WP Visibility does not output these types. It outputs one clean block of structured data per page, limited to the types Google still uses.

The difference between FAQ content and FAQ markup

The distinction matters. Answering common questions on a page remains useful for readers, and AI answer tools often draw on clear question-and-answer writing. That value sits in the content rather than in the markup.

FAQ rich results stopped showing in Google, so WP Visibility does not output FAQ markup. You can still write FAQ-style sections, and they can still help your readers and be quoted by AI tools. What you will no longer see is a special search result from the markup.

How WP Visibility handles structured data

The approach follows from two rules.

First, it outputs a property only when the underlying data resolves. If a property cannot be filled, the plugin leaves it out rather than emitting an empty one. A product with a hidden price gets no price node rather than a zero-price offer. The discipline keeps error rows out of your Search Console reports, and each error a plugin causes is trust it costs you.

Second, it outputs only the types that have a live consumer, such as a rich result, the Knowledge Graph, the Shopping Graph, or a documented path that AI tools use to ground answers. Markup that no one reads amounts to extra weight and a false promise, even when Google tolerates it.

The same care covers markup that is allowed but risky. A self-serving aggregateRating on your own Organization or LocalBusiness, meaning star ratings about yourself hosted on your own site, has been ineligible since September 2019 and can draw a manual action. Some schema builders will still let you emit it. WP Visibility does not. Product ratings come from real customer reviews, and your WooCommerce reviews qualify, or they are left out.

What the plugin does output is deliberately plain: the core types Google is investing in, such as WebSite, Organization or Person, WebPage, Article, and Breadcrumb, plus ProfilePage on author archives and merchant-grade Product markup for WooCommerce. It leaves out the types Google is retiring.

Google has changed its schema support several times in two years, so WP Visibility tracks these deprecations and updates the plugin, including the help text, through normal plugin updates. When the next type is retired, the plugin follows it.

For the same kind of look at content analysis instead of structured data, see our piece on why keyword density scores do not measure much anymore.

See what your structured data looks like today

If you want to know which of these types your site currently emits, the free scan at wpvisibility.com grades your site’s AI visibility in about a minute and shows you what your structured data looks like to Google and to AI tools. It is a useful first step whether or not you ever install the plugin.

If you do want the plugin, WP Visibility is $99 a year, with every feature, unlimited sites, and client sites included, no account, and a 30-day refund. See pricing.