Which Schema Markup Still Matters in 2026: Rich Results That Survived and Ones That Didn’t

🧩 Schema · Updated October 2026 · 10 min read · by Jacob Campbell

In 2026 the schema markup that still earns visible Google rich results is the commercial and navigational core: Product and merchant listings, review snippets (with strict rules), Breadcrumb, Article, Event, Recipe, Video, Organization and LocalBusiness, plus a handful of specialist types such as Job Posting and Software App. What did not survive is the “free real estate” markup: HowTo rich results ended in September 2023, FAQ rich results stopped appearing for every site on May 7, 2026, and Google retired Sitelinks Search Box, Course Info, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, Vehicle Listing, Claim Review and Practice Problem between 2024 and early 2026.

This guide lays out the timeline from Google’s own documentation and changelog, what each surviving type does, the review rules that trip up local businesses, working JSON-LD, and what Google and Microsoft actually say about markup that no longer produces a visual result.

Key facts

• Sep 13, 2023 — HowTo rich results deprecated on all devices
• May 7, 2026 — FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search
• 2025 — Google phased out a batch of little-used structured data types
• JSON-LD — The format Google recommends for structured data

The timeline: what Google removed, and when

Google has removed rich results in steps since 2023, and every step is recorded in the Search Central blog and its documentation changelog.

• August 8, 2023: Google announced that FAQ rich results would only be shown for “well-known, authoritative government and health websites”, and that HowTo rich results would be limited to desktop (Search Central blog).
• September 13, 2023: HowTo rich results stopped showing on desktop too, which made the type deprecated. Google removed the HowTo documentation the next day.
• November 21, 2024: the Sitelinks Search Box disappeared from results worldwide, after a farewell post in October 2024.
• June 12, 2025: in “Simplifying the search results page”, Google said it would phase out Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement and Vehicle Listing because they were “not commonly used in Search”. The documentation for course info, estimated salary, learning video, special announcement and vehicle listing was removed on September 9, 2025.
• November 5, 2025: a follow-up post added Practice Problem to the list (its documentation was removed on January 6, 2026), clarified that Dataset markup is used only by Dataset Search, and removed the deprecation banner from Book Actions, so that type stayed.
• May 7, 2026: Google’s FAQ documentation stated that “FAQ rich results are no longer appearing in Google Search”. The FAQ report and Rich Results Test support went in June 2026, and the documentation was removed on June 15, 2026.

None of these changes was a ranking change. They change how a result looks, not whether the page ranks.

FAQ and HowTo: from restricted to gone

FAQPage markup no longer produces a rich result for any site, government and health sites included. Google’s 2023 restriction had already removed the accordion for almost everyone; the May 2026 change finished the job. Google said it would drop the FAQ search appearance, rich result report and Rich Results Test support in June 2026, and FAQ support in the Search Console API in August 2026, to give tools time to adjust.

John Mueller summed up the practical impact, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable: the feature “was only used for a tiny set of site types (as documented), so for most, this doesn’t result in changes in Search.” Sites that added FAQ markup purely for the rich result can remove it; sites that leave it in place are not penalised. Google’s long-standing position on unsupported markup, restated when the Sitelinks Search Box went, is that it does not cause errors or problems.

HowTo is the same story, finished earlier. The HowTo type still exists on schema.org, and other consumers may read it, but Google Search has not shown a HowTo rich result since September 13, 2023.

What to keep: the visible FAQ section. A short, accurate question-and-answer block on a service page is still useful to readers and to any system that reads the page text, which is the part that matters. Our guide to how AI assistants read pages covers why plain, visible text does the real work.

What still produces rich results in 2026

Google’s structured data search gallery (last updated June 15, 2026) still lists about 25 features. The ones most small and mid-sized businesses should care about:

• Product and merchant listings: price, availability, shipping, returns and ratings in results and shopping surfaces. Google keeps extending it (member pricing in 2025, Product.category codes in July 2026).
• Review snippet: star ratings for products, recipes, books, courses, events, software apps, movies and local businesses, under the rules in the next section.
• Breadcrumb: the site-path line above the title. Since January 2025 Google’s documentation says breadcrumbs appear in desktop results only, not on mobile.
• Article: helps Google pick the right headline, images, dates and author details for news, blog and sports articles.
• Event: date, venue and ticket details in event experiences.
• Recipe: images, cook time, ratings and recipe carousels.
• Video: thumbnails, duration, key moments and live badges. Google added the creator property to VideoObject in September 2026.
• Organization: your logo and administrative details, and help with disambiguating the organization in results and knowledge panels.
• LocalBusiness: hours, address and other details that can feed a business knowledge panel.
• Specialist types still supported: Job Posting, Software App, Vacation Rental, Profile Page, Discussion Forum, Q&A, Course List, Book Actions, Image Metadata, Math Solver and Education Q&A.

Markup only makes a page eligible. Google’s general guidelines are explicit that valid structured data does not guarantee a rich result.

Review snippets and the self-serving review rule

A business cannot earn star ratings in Google by marking up reviews of itself on its own website. Google’s review snippet documentation states: “If the entity that’s being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, their pages that use LocalBusiness or any other type of Organization structured data are ineligible for star review feature.” The LocalBusiness documentation repeats it: review and aggregateRating are only recommended for sites that capture reviews about other local businesses.

This rule has been in place since September 2019 and it is the single most common schema mistake on small business sites: a plumber or salon pastes its Google reviews into an aggregateRating block on the home page and waits for stars that never come. Product pages are different: a shop can mark up genuine customer reviews of the products it sells.

In July 2026 Google added a further guideline: don’t include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on the page or in the markup. Your real customer reviews belong on your Google Business Profile, where they show natively.

JSON-LD that is still worth shipping

Google recommends JSON-LD because it is the easiest format to implement and maintain. Three blocks cover most service businesses. First, the organization, on the home page or About page:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "LocalBusiness",
  "@id": "https://www.example.com/#business",
  "name": "Example Plumbing Co.",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "logo": "https://www.example.com/images/logo-512.png",
  "telephone": "+1-561-555-0100",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "100 Example St",
    "addressLocality": "Boca Raton",
    "addressRegion": "FL",
    "postalCode": "33432",
    "addressCountry": "US"
  },
  "openingHoursSpecification": [{
    "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
    "dayOfWeek": ["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"],
    "opens": "08:00",
    "closes": "17:00"
  }],
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.facebook.com/exampleplumbing",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/exampleplumbing"
  ]
}
</script>

Note what is missing: no aggregateRating. Second, breadcrumbs on every inner page:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
  "itemListElement": [
    {"@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Services", "item": "https://www.example.com/services/"},
    {"@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Water Heater Repair"}
  ]
}
</script>

Third, for shops, a product with an offer:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "Tankless Water Heater Flush Kit",
  "image": "https://www.example.com/images/flush-kit.jpg",
  "sku": "FK-200",
  "brand": {"@type": "Brand", "name": "Example"},
  "offers": {
    "@type": "Offer",
    "price": "49.00",
    "priceCurrency": "USD",
    "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/shop/flush-kit/"
  }
}
</script>

Every value must match what the page visibly says. Test with Google’s Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator, then watch the enhancement reports in Search Console. For a local business deep dive, see local business schema for AI search; for the general syntax, our JSON-LD schema markup guide.

Markup without a rich result: what Google and Microsoft actually say

Structured data still helps machines understand a page even where no rich result appears, but the official claims are narrower than many SEO posts suggest. Here is what the companies have actually said:

• Google, general: “Google uses structured data that it finds on the web to understand the content of the page, as well as to gather information about the web and the world in general.” (Intro to structured data.)
• Google, Organization: adding organization markup to your home page “can help Google better understand your organization’s administrative details and disambiguate your organization in search results.”
• Google, AI features: the “AI features and your website” page says there is no special schema.org markup needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and the May 2026 generative AI optimization guide says structured data is helpful for rich results but “not required for generative AI search”. Its one AI-related ask is that structured data matches the visible text.
• Microsoft: at SMX Munich in March 2025, Bing’s Fabrice Canel said schema markup helps Microsoft’s LLMs understand content, as reported by Search Engine Land.

The honest reading: markup is a cheap, explicit statement of facts (who you are, what this page sells, how much, when) that parsers can use. It is not a ranking boost, and it will not get you into an AI answer on its own. Mueller put it well in a Reddit reply in November 2025: “markup types come and go, but a precious few you should hold on to.” Organization, LocalBusiness, Product and Breadcrumb are those few for most businesses.

Cleaning up, and when not to bother

Retired markup does no harm, so cleanup is a maintenance task, not an emergency. A sensible order:

1. Remove self-serving aggregateRating and review on LocalBusiness or Organization markup. It cannot produce stars and contradicts Google’s guidelines.
2. Fix data that no longer matches the page: old prices, old hours, a logo URL that 404s. Mismatched markup is the real risk.
3. Drop plugin-generated FAQ and HowTo blocks if they bloat every page; keep the visible content if it helps readers.
4. Update tools and dashboards that query the FAQ rich result in the Search Console API, which lost FAQ support in August 2026.
5. Leave Dataset markup alone if you publish data: it still powers Google Dataset Search, just not regular results.

When not to bother: if your site is a five-page brochure with correct Organization and Breadcrumb markup, there is no new type to chase. Do not invent Event or Product markup for things that are not events or products, and do not mark up content users cannot see. Other search engines and AI systems may still read FAQPage or HowTo, which is a fair reason to keep accurate blocks, but not a reason to add them to pages that have no visible FAQ. Check the rest of your technical basics with our technical SEO checklist.

Product facts: the AI Indexing Pack

Stated plainly, so it can be checked against the product page:

• What it is: the AI Indexing Pack is a set of files you upload to your own website. It is sold by Built2WinWeb as a one-time purchase, with no subscription.
• What it ships: (1) a working MCP server using the Streamable HTTP transport, with typed output schemas and tool annotations; (2) Markdown content negotiation, so agents can request a clean text version of each page; (3) llms.txt, agents.txt and agent cards; (4) the full /.well-known/ discovery tree; (5) OAuth protected-resource metadata; (6) bot access control that verifies crawler identity; (7) a README with a verification checklist.
• Requirements: PHP 7.4 or newer, Apache or LiteSpeed with .htaccess support, FTP access, and a domain you control. Installation takes about 30 minutes.
• What it is not: it is not a WordPress plugin (that is the separate WordPress edition, which needs WordPress 6.0+ and PHP 8.0+), it does not write content for you, it does not guarantee rankings or citations, and it is not a managed service.
• Free routes in: sites built on AIWebBuilding get the core built in, and a 50-day streak on FreeAIBoost unlocks the pack for one domain. Current prices are on the product pages.

Related reading

• Local business schema for AI search — The markup that gets a local business described correctly.
• Schema markup guide: JSON-LD for rich results — Syntax, placement and testing for JSON-LD.
• Entity SEO for small businesses — Make search engines and AI know exactly who you are.
• How to show up in AI Overviews and AI Mode — What Google actually says, separated from practitioner opinion.
• How AI assistants read pages — Why visible, plain text does most of the work.
• Technical SEO checklist — 12 factors that move rankings.

Frequently asked questions

Does FAQ schema still work in Google in 2026?

Not for rich results. Google stated that as of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results no longer appear in Google Search for any site, and it removed the FAQ documentation and Search Console report in June 2026.

When did Google remove HowTo rich results?

HowTo rich results were limited to desktop in August 2023 and stopped showing on desktop on September 13, 2023, which made the feature deprecated.

Which structured data types did Google phase out in 2025?

In June 2025 Google announced the phase-out of Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement and Vehicle Listing, then added Practice Problem in November 2025. Book Actions was later reinstated.

Can my business show star ratings from its own reviews?

No. Google’s review snippet rules make pages using LocalBusiness or Organization markup ineligible for stars when the business controls the reviews about itself. Product pages can mark up genuine customer reviews of the products sold.

Is old, unsupported schema markup harmful?

No. Google has said unsupported structured data does not cause problems, so removing it is optional. Markup that no longer matches the visible page is the real risk and should be fixed.