What’s up with the FAQ schema?
Google just dropped the bomb that they’re ditching the FAQs that pop up below your search results. Before, you could add fancy code to your page to display questions and answers. But now, they’re only showing them from super official sites like Gov.uk and NHS. Check out the full scoop here: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/08/howto-faq-changes
So, what does this mean for you?
Well, if your site had the FAQ schema markup, those questions and answers won’t be showing up anymore. You can hop into Google Search Console and see if they were appearing by checking the Search Results Performance Report. Make sure to apply the “FAQ Rich Results” search appearance filter to see the data.
But hey, don’t worry too much about losing all those clicks. The clicks shown in the FAQ Rich Results report are only when someone saw your site in the search results with FAQs attached and clicked on the link to go to your site. The good news is that your page’s ranking won’t be affected, so if people were clicking on it when the FAQs were there, they’re likely to keep clicking even when they’re gone. The only difference is that the report in Google Search Console will show zero impressions and clicks when the FAQ Rich Results search appearance filter is applied.
What do I do now?
Right now, there’s nothing to worry about. If you have FAQ schema code on your website pages, there’s no need to get rid of it. Google will still go through and understand the schema, even though the FAQs won’t appear below your website in search results. Those FAQs could still be useful because they give more information and show your expertise. So, removing them might not be a good idea. If you’re currently adding FAQ schema, keep going because of the reasons mentioned earlier.