Schema & Rich Result Deprecations: The Full Timeline

TL;DR — Over the last few years Google has quietly stopped showing several of the “fancy” search listings that structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. used to unlock — FAQ drop-downs, HowTo steps, and a batch of others. The confusing part: the markup itself is usually still valid. Google just stopped displaying it. “Still valid” and “still visible” are two different things, and mixing them up is the single most common mistake I see people make here.

What “deprecated” actually means here

When people say a schema type was “deprecated,” they usually picture the code becoming invalid — like Google will throw an error if you keep it. That’s almost never what happens.

What actually happens is that Google stops showing the visual enhancement — the star ratings, the FAQ accordion, the recipe card — in its search results. The underlying schema.org code stays perfectly valid. Google even says it keeps reading that code “for understanding.” It just doesn’t paint anything special on the results page anymore.

So a deprecated rich result means: your markup is fine, but nobody sees a special listing for it in Google anymore.

The short version of the timeline

If you only remember a few dates:

• 2023 — FAQ rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. got cut back to just government and health sites, and HowTo rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. disappeared entirely.
• 2024 — the little search box that sometimes appeared under a brand’s listing (the “sitelinksSitelinks are extra links from the same domain that Google clusters together under a single search result, usually for branded or navigational queries. They're generated entirely algorithmically — there's no way to add, edit, or guarantee them. searchbox”) went away.
• 2025 — Google removed a batch of about six more types at once (things like Vehicle Listing and Claim Review).
• 2026 — FAQ rich results were removed completely, even for the government and health sites that had kept them.

The thing most people get wrong

Two myths worth killing right away:

1. “Deprecated means I have to delete the markup.” No. Google says leftover structured data doesn’t cause problems — it’s just inert for display. You can leave it.
2. “This means my rankings dropped.” No — not for the reason you’d think. Every single one of these changes is a display change, not a ranking change. Google has said so explicitly each time. If you lost a rich result, you didn’t lose rankings — you lost a visual upgrade. That said, a visual upgrade can be the reason a listing gets clicked, so a lost rich result can still move your clicks or impressions for that query — that’s a real, measurable effect, just a different one from ranking. Check Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results.’s Performance reportThe Google Search Console report that shows how your site actually performed in Google Search, built from real impressions and clicks. It reports four metrics — clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position — and keeps the most recent 16 months of data. for the affected pages instead of assuming either “nothing changed” or “I got penalized.”

If you’re already comfortable with structured data and just want the exact dates, the primary sources, and the one genuinely tricky case (a type Google announced for removal but then kept), switch to the Advanced tab — it leads with the full reference table.

TL;DR — This is meant to be the single running reference for Google’s schema and rich-result deprecations. Every deprecation moves through some subset of a milestone chain people conflate into one date: announcement (optional), display removal (the rich result stops appearing), documentation removal, tooling removal (Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. reporting → Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test → filter list), and finally API support ending — these can span weeks to months and not every type gets every milestone. A removed Google feature can leave the schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. type valid because the vocabulary and Google’s display support are separate systems — “valid” and “visible” are different axes. Do not infer ranking effects from a display-feature change unless Google documents them — and even then, a lost visual enhancement can still move clicks or impressions, which is a separate, measurable thing from ranking. The one true “false deprecation” is Book ActionsBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result. — announced June 12, 2025 alongside six others, explicitly excluded from the actual September 2025 removal, and confirmed still live. Bing has announced no parallel cycle (though that’s read from the absence of an announcement, not a Bing-published policy). The narrative backstory for each deprecation already lives in the deeper articles; this page is the table.

The quick-reference table

Every row is sourced to a primary Google page in the Quotes from the Source and Official Docs tabs. Dates are Google’s own changelog/blog dates.

The rest of this tab is the context a table can’t hold: why there are always two dates, the one type that survived its own removal notice, and why Bing isn’t in the table at all.

TIP Check feature support separately from schema validity

A retired Google rich result can still use valid schema.org markup. Treat the feature status and its verification date as a separate audit dimension from JSON-LD syntax and content accuracy.

Paste a page or markup sample into my checker to see whether its detected types still map to a current Google search feature. Rich Result Eligibility Checker Free

1. Test the markup and identify the detected schema type.
2. Read the current feature status and linked verification date.
3. Keep valid markup when it remains useful, but remove the retired rich result from forecasts and reporting expectations.

Tap to enlarge

The milestone chain — clear this up first

The reason deprecation dates never quite match across articles is that a single retirement is actually a chain of up to five distinct milestones, and different writers cite different links in that chain:

1. Announcement. Google posts or notes that a feature will be phased out, sometimes with a future effective date. Not every deprecation gets a separate announcement milestone — some (like the 2023 HowTo/FAQ post) go straight to the display change.
2. Display removal. The visual rich result stops appearing in live Search results. This is the date most people mean when they say “deprecated.”
3. Documentation removal. Google pulls or redirects the dedicated doc page for the type — usually well after the display change, sometimes weeks later.
4. Tooling removal. This itself happens in stages: Search Console rich-result reporting first, then the Rich Results Test and the Search-appearance filter list.
5. API removal. The Search Console APIA set of REST APIs that let you programmatically read and manage Google Search Console data for properties you've verified — Performance data, URL index status, sitemaps, and properties — authorized with OAuth 2.0. stops supporting the type last — the tail can run months after the display is gone.

Not every type gets all five. Book Actions only ever got milestone 1 (announcement) before Google reversed course. HowTo’s 2023 removal skipped straight to milestone 2 with no separate announcement date. FAQ is the fullest illustration on record: the display went away May 7, 2026 (milestone 2); Search Console reporting and the Rich Results Test dropped it in June 2026 (milestone 4); the dedicated FAQPage doc page was removed June 15, 2026 (milestone 3, which landed after the tooling milestone this time — the order isn’t fixed); and the API support is scheduled to end in August 2026 (milestone 5, still unconfirmed as of this page’s last update). Four legitimate “FAQ was deprecated” dates, all correct, all describing different milestones. Always specify which one you mean, and check whether a future-dated milestone has actually landed yet before citing it as done.

2023 — FAQ and HowTo get narrowed, then HowTo dies entirely

The whole modern deprecation cadence really starts with one post: “Changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results,” posted by John Mueller in August 2023.

For FAQ, the announcement was a narrowing, not a removal: “FAQ (from FAQPage structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding.) rich results will only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer be shown regularly.”

For HowTo, the first step was mobile: “How-To (from HowTo structured data) rich results will only be shown for desktop users, and not for users on mobile devices.”

That desktop-only state for HowTo lasted only a few weeks. By September 14, 2023, Google’s documentation changelog recorded the full removal: “Removed the How-to structured data documentation, as this rich result is no longer shown in search results, on both desktop and mobile devices.”

That “both desktop and mobile” wording is the correction that matters. A lot of articles still describe HowTo as “desktop-only now” — that was true for about five weeks in 2023, and then it wasn’t. HowTo is fully gone; the desktop-only pattern belongs to FAQ’s middle stage, not to HowTo’s final one. They get confused because they were announced in the same post. (My own Ahrefs schema markup guide describes the 2023-era framing — FAQ narrowed to gov/health, HowTo desktop-only — which is exactly the “still-technically-true-but-now-outdated” snapshot this page exists to update.)

The deeper narrative for FAQ and HowTo specifically already lives on this site’s FAQ and HowTo schemaHowTo schema (schema.org/HowTo) is structured data for step-by-step instructions. Google fully removed the HowTo rich result — on both desktop and mobile — in 2023, so it no longer produces any visible treatment in Search, though the schema.org vocabulary remains valid to use. pages — cross-reference those rather than expecting the whole backstory here.

November 2024 — the sitelinks searchbox is discontinued

Google announced the change on October 21, 2024 in “Farewell, Sitelinks Search Box”, stating the feature would stop appearing on November 21, 2024, “due to decreased usage.” The documentation was removed and archived on November 29, 2024, which is why you’ll see three dates cited for this one: October 21 for the announcement, November 21 for when it stopped appearing, and November 29 for when Google removed the docs.

Two clarifications people trip on:

• This is not the same as “sitelinksSitelinks are extra links from the same domain that Google clusters together under a single search result, usually for branded or navigational queries. They're generated entirely algorithmically — there's no way to add, edit, or guarantee them..” Ordinary clickable subpage links under a result are unaffected. Only the search-box went away.
• The WebSite type itself is not dead — it’s still how you feed Site Names. Only the SearchAction-powered box was retired.

The full story lives on this site’s website-schema deep dive — cross-reference for the details.

2025 — the year of the batch removal

April 2025 — Special Announcement gets an early, separate notice

Slightly ahead of the big batch, Google’s changelog added a deprecation notice to the Special Announcement docs on April 23, 2025, with a stated effective date of July 31, 2025. So Special Announcement was technically deprecated on its own timeline before being folded into the June batch messaging — a small wrinkle worth knowing if you’re reconciling dates.

June 12, 2025 — seven types announced

The batch announcement is “Simplifying the search results page,” posted by Henry Hsu, Product Manager, Google Search, on June 12, 2025: “As part of our ongoing efforts to simplify the Google Search results page, we will be phasing out support for a few structured data features in Search.”

His stated reason: “We’re phasing out these specific structured data types because our analysis shows that they’re not commonly used in Search, and we found that these specific displays are no longer providing significant additional value for users.” And the reassurance every one of these posts includes: “This update won’t affect how pages are ranked.”

The seven types named in that June 12 post: Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, and Vehicle Listing.

September 9, 2025 — six of the seven actually removed

Here’s the fact almost everyone gets wrong. The same blog post carries an update appended on September 8, 2025, and it lists only six types being removed from Search Console: Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, and Vehicle Listing. Search Console reporting, the Rich Results Test, and the Search-appearance filter list dropped those six effective September 9, 2025; the Search Console API continued supporting them through December 2025.

Book Actions is not on the removal list. It was announced in June, then quietly excluded from the actual cutdown.

The Book Actions exception — announced, then explicitly kept

This is the single most-garbled fact in the industry’s coverage of the 2025 batch, so it’s worth stating plainly: Book Actions was announced for removal on June 12, 2025, but was never actually removed. In November 2025, Google’s changelog went further and removed the deprecation banner from the Book Actions documentation, noting there’s still a feature using the markup in Google Search. It remains a live, registration-gated feature. The full Book Actions story lives on this site’s book schema deep dive — cross-reference it. If you take one thing from this section: “announced for removal” and “removed” are not the same claim, and aggregator listicles that just re-print the original seven-item list get this wrong.

Late 2025 / early 2026 — Practice Problem and the Dataset clarification

In November 2025, Google’s changelog added a deprecation notice to the Practice Problem documentation, with support in Search Console rich-result reporting, the Rich Results Test, and the filter list set to be removed starting January 2026 (the API continuing through January 2026). The Practice Problem type is no longer shown in Search results.

Dataset is a different kind of entry, and worth separating out. In the same November 2025 window, Google clarified that Dataset structured data is only used by Dataset Search — not mainstream Google Search. So Dataset was never a mainstream SERP rich result that got “deprecated”; Google simply clarified it was always narrower than people assumed. That’s a clarification, not a removal — don’t file it alongside the others.

May–June 2026 — FAQ rich results fully removed

The final chapter for FAQ. Google’s changelog, May 8, 2026 entry: “Added a deprecation notice to the FAQ rich result documentation. This feature will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026.” This removed FAQ rich results even for the government and health sites that had kept them since 2023.

Then the staged tooling teardown, which Search Engine Land laid out in one place: the FAQ search appearance, rich result report, and Rich Results Test support came out in June 2026, and the Search Console API support is scheduled to end in August 2026 — a milestone that was still unconfirmed as of this page’s last update; check the Google changelog directly if you’re reading this after August 2026. Separately, by June 15, 2026 Google’s own changelog recorded: “Removed documentation for the FAQ rich result feature. The FAQ rich result feature is no longer shown in Google Search results, as announced in the changelog entry in May 2026.” The dedicated FAQPage doc page no longer exists — its URL now 301-redirects to the changelog, confirmed live. Note that the documentation removal (June 15) landed a few days after the tooling removal Search Engine Land describes for June — another reminder that these milestones don’t arrive in a fixed order.

And the one line every FAQ article should keep repeating: the FAQPage schema.org type itself is not deprecated. Google’s framing across this whole cycle is consistent — the type stays valid and Google says it keeps parsing it for understanding; only the visible SERP element is gone.

What Google says this does — and doesn’t — mean

Three through-lines run across every primary post in this timeline:

• The type stays valid. HowTo, the June 2025 six, FAQ — all remain valid schema.org markup that Google says it still parses “for understanding.” Only the display went away.
• Not a ranking change. Every post that addresses it says so plainly — “This update won’t affect how pages are ranked,” “This should not be considered a ranking change.” Both statements are scoped to the specific removal they’re attached to (the June 2025 batch, the FAQ removal) — they’re not a blanket guarantee about every structured-data change forever. And “not a ranking change” is not the same as “no measurable effect”: a rich result that made a listing more clickable can still lose clicks or impressions once it’s gone, which is a Search-appearance/CTR effect, not a ranking one. Measure it in Search Console rather than assuming either outcome.
• “Google is not killing schema.” Amid the 2026 confusion, John Mueller pushed back on the overreaction directly (relayed via Stan Ventures): “Google is not killing schema.” These are targeted, feature-by-feature prunings — not an abandonment of structured data.

Does Bing follow the same pattern? No.

This is overwhelmingly a Google phenomenon. I found no Bing or Microsoft announcement mirroring any of these removals — not HowTo, not FAQ, not the June 2025 batch. That’s an absence-of-evidence finding, not a Bing-published policy — I’m inferring it from what I couldn’t find, and Bing hasn’t stated a keep/discard framework of its own for markup that Google has stopped displaying. With that caveat, the working position, consistent with how this site treats Bing elsewhere, is: Bing continues to read schema.org markup broadly, and Fabrice Canel has gone on record that schema helps Microsoft’s LLMs understand content — a general statement about schema’s value, not a confirmation that Bing specifically consumes the types in this table’s removal list. So the honest cross-engine framing is: Google narrowed its list; Bing hasn’t (publicly) followed, as far as I could verify.

What to actually do with deprecated markup

Short version: usually nothing — but “usually” isn’t “always,” and a blanket leave-it rule glosses over cases that actually deserve a second look. Check each of these, per type, rather than applying one rule to everything in the table:

• Is the type still valid? In every case on this page, yes — Google says it keeps parsing deprecated types “for understanding,” and leftover structured data doesn’t throw errors or cause problems. This is the default case, and for most markup on most sites, it’s where the checklist ends: leave it.
• Does anything else still consume it? Bing, entity-understanding systems, or your own internal tooling might still read a type Google no longer displays. If something else genuinely uses it, that’s a real reason to keep it — separate from whatever Google does with it.
• Does the markup still describe what’s actually on the page? This is a content- truth question, not a deprecation one. If a page’s content has drifted since the markup was written (a FAQ section removed, a HowTo rewritten as prose), fix or remove the markup on those grounds — regardless of whether Google still shows a rich result for it.
• Is maintaining it worth the effort? For most sites, deprecated markup that’s already in a template costs nothing to leave alone. But if a type requires ongoing manual upkeep (data feeds, per-page overrides) purely to chase a rich result that no longer exists, that’s a legitimate reason to stop investing further effort in it — not to rip out what’s already there, but to deprioritize new work on it.
• Is there a better use for that effort? Don’t build new markup for a dead feature (fresh FAQ or HowTo expecting a SERP visual). If you’re touching a template anyway, that effort is better spent on a type that still renders, or on entity markup (Organization, sameAs) that still does real work.
• Watch for the next one. The cadence is clearly ongoing; the Google changelog is the single source of truth, and this table is the running summary.

For the full step-by-step version of this same logic, see the Decision Trees tab.

Where to go deeper

This page is deliberately the table, not the backstory. For the full narrative on each deprecation, the deeper articles in this sub-cluster carry it:

• Structured data — the hub: what schema does, why it’s not a ranking factor, and the shrinking supported list in context.
• Schema markupSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. — the vocabulary itself and the general deprecation-wave narrative.
• Rich results — the SERP enhancements, eligibility, and how to track removals in Search Console.
• Creative works and social/community schema — the June 2025 batch and the FAQ/HowTo status in their own domains.
• Book schemaBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result. — the full Book Actions “announced but kept” story.
• Website schemaWebSite schema (schema.org/WebSite) is structured data — usually JSON-LD on the homepage — that identifies your domain as a website entity via its name and URL. Today it mainly feeds Google's Site Names feature; the Sitelinks Search Box it used to enable was discontinued by Google in November 2024. — the full sitelinks searchbox story.

For the broader on-page picture, see the on-page SEO cluster and the Structured Data for SEO hubStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding..

AI summary

A condensed take on the Advanced version:

• A milestone chain, not two dates. Up to five events can apply to one retirement — announcement, display removal, documentation removal, tooling removal (Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. reporting → Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test → filter list), and API removal — and not every type gets every milestone, or in the same order. Always specify which one you mean, and flag future-dated milestones as scheduled, not done.
• “Valid” ≠ “visible.” In every case the schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. type stays valid and Google says it keeps parsing it “for understanding.” Only the SERP display goes away. Don’t delete markup just because the enhancement is gone.
• Not a ranking change — but check clicks anyway. Every primary Google post says so — “This update won’t affect how pages are ranked” — scoped to that specific removal. That’s not the same as “no measurable effect”: a lost rich result can still move clicks or impressions, which is worth checking in Search Console rather than assuming away.
• The timeline: FAQ restricted to gov/health (Aug 2023) → fully removed May 7, 2026 (docs removed Jun 15, 2026; tooling June 2026; API removal scheduled Aug 2026, unconfirmed as of this update); HowTo removed on both desktop and mobile Sep 14, 2023 (not desktop-only — that was FAQ’s middle stage); sitelinksSitelinks are extra links from the same domain that Google clusters together under a single search result, usually for branded or navigational queries. They're generated entirely algorithmically — there's no way to add, edit, or guarantee them. searchbox announced Oct 21, 2024, discontinued ~Nov 21, docs removed Nov 29; the June 12, 2025 batch of seven → six actually removed Sep 9, 2025 (Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, Vehicle Listing); Practice Problem removed Jan 6, 2026; Dataset clarified (not removed) as Dataset-Search-only.
• Book ActionsBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result. is the “false deprecation.” Announced June 12, 2025, explicitly excluded from the Sep 2025 removal, deprecation banner pulled Nov 2025 — still live and registration-gated.
• Bing has announced no parallel cycle — an absence-of-evidence finding, not a confirmed Bing policy; take it as a working position, not a citation.
• What to do: usually nothing, but check per type — leave valid markup unless it’s erroring or describing content no longer on the page, keep it if something else still reads it, and don’t build new markup for a dead feature. Watch the Google changelog for the next one.

Official documentation

Primary-source documentation from Google. The changelog is the single source of truth for every dated entry in the table.

Google — the running source of truth

• Google Search Central documentation changelog — the dated log behind every row in the table: HowTo removal, sitelinksSitelinks are extra links from the same domain that Google clusters together under a single search result, usually for branded or navigational queries. They're generated entirely algorithmically — there's no way to add, edit, or guarantee them. searchbox, the June 2025 batch, Practice Problem, Dataset, and the FAQ 2026 entries.

Google — the announcement posts

• Changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results — John Mueller, August 2023: FAQ restricted to gov/health; HowTo restricted to desktop.
• Farewell, Sitelinks Search Box — October 21, 2024: the feature discontinuation announcement, effective November 21, 2024.
• Simplifying the search results page — Henry Hsu, Product Manager, June 12, 2025, with the September 8, 2025 update listing the six types actually removed.

Google — the reference galleries and policies (context)

• Structured Data Search Gallery — the current list of supported rich result types (the live counterpart to this historical table).
• Structured Data General Guidelines — the “no guarantee” of rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. and the visibility/accuracy rules.

Bing / Microsoft

• Marking Up Your Site with Structured Data — Bing Webmaster Help — Bing’s structured-data guidance; no parallel deprecation cycle announced for the types in this table.
• Bing Webmaster Guidelines — markup — Bing’s general markup stance.

Quotes from the source

On-the-record statements behind the timeline. Each link is a deep link that jumps to the quoted passage on the source page.

Google — the 2023 HowTo/FAQ changes (John Mueller, August 2023)

• “FAQ (from FAQPage structured dataFAQPage schema (schema.org/FAQPage) is structured data for a page's frequently-asked-questions content. It used to make pages eligible for an expandable FAQ rich result in Google Search, but Google fully removed that rich result on May 7, 2026 — the markup itself stays valid schema.org vocabulary, Google says it still reads it for understanding, and Bing has announced no equivalent removal.) rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. will only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer be shown regularly.” Jump to quote
• “How-To (from HowTo structured dataHowTo schema (schema.org/HowTo) is structured data for step-by-step instructions. Google fully removed the HowTo rich result — on both desktop and mobile — in 2023, so it no longer produces any visible treatment in Search, though the schema.org vocabulary remains valid to use.) rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. will only be shown for desktop users, and not for users on mobile devices.” Jump to quote

Google — HowTo fully removed (documentation changelog, Sep 14, 2023)

• “Removed the How-to structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. documentation, as this rich result is no longer shown in search results, on both desktop and mobile devices.” Jump to quote

Google — the June 2025 batch (Henry Hsu, Product Manager, June 12, 2025)

• “As part of our ongoing efforts to simplify the Google Search results page, we will be phasing out support for a few structured data features in Search.” Jump to quote
• “We’re phasing out these specific structured data types because our analysis shows that they’re not commonly used in Search, and we foundA 302 (\"Found\") is a temporary redirect: it forwards users to a new URL while telling search engines the original URL should stay in the index. It's a weak canonicalization signal, not the zero-equity dead end of SEO folklore. that these specific displays are no longer providing significant additional value for users.” Jump to quote

Google — Book ActionsBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result. kept (documentation changelog, November 2025)

• “Removed the deprecation banner from Book actions documentation, as there’s still a feature using the markup in Google Search.” Jump to quote

Google — FAQ fully removed (documentation changelog, May–June 2026)

• “This feature will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026.” Jump to quote
• “The FAQ rich result feature is no longer shown in Google Search results, as announced in the changelog entry in May 2026.” Jump to quote

John Mueller — “Google is not killing schema” (2026, relayed)

• “Google is not killing schema.” Read the coverage

Fabrice Canel, Microsoft Bing — schema still matters (relayed)

• “Schema markupSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. helps Microsoft’s LLMsA large language model (LLM) is a deep-learning model trained on massive text corpora to predict the next token and generate human-like text. LLMs use the transformer architecture and power AI search features like Google's AI Overviews (Gemini) and Bing Copilot (GPT-4). understand content.” Read the coverage

Should I remove deprecated schema markup?

Work top to bottom. Short answer for almost everyone: leave it.

1. Was the type deprecated, or just the rich result?

• If Google removed only the visual rich result (the usual case — FAQ, HowTo, the June 2025 six), the schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. type is still valid and Google says it keeps parsing it. → Go to step 2.
• If you genuinely can’t confirm the type is still valid, check the Google changelog and the Search Gallery before touching anything.

2. Is the markup causing an error or a policy problem?

• No (the normal case) — Google says leftover structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. doesn’t cause problems and is simply inert for display. → Leave it. There’s no cleanup emergency.
• Yes — it’s throwing validation errors, or it describes content not visible on the page — → fix or remove that issue on its own merits (a policy matter, not a deprecation one).

3. Are you about to build new markup for a deprecated feature?

• If you were planning fresh FAQ or HowTo markup expecting a SERP enhancement → don’t — that visual payoff no longer exists for most sites. Spend the effort on a type that still renders, or on entity markup (Organization, sameAs) that still does real work.
• If the markup also serves a non-Google purpose (entity understanding, Bing, AI systems that read schema) → it may still be worth keeping or adding, just not for the dead Google rich result.

4. Is this actually Book ActionsBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result.?

• Book Actions was announced for removal but kept. If you’re removing markup because you saw it on a “removed in 2025” list → stop and re-check — it’s still live and registration-gated. Don’t strip working markup off a bad listicle.

5. Did your rankings change?

• If you’re removing markup because a rich result vanished and you assume rankings dropped → they didn’t — every one of these is a display change, not a ranking change, per Google. Don’t make ranking-driven decisions off a display removal.

Schema deprecations — cheat sheet

The removals at a glance

The milestone chain to keep straight

Not every type gets every row — treat “typical order” as a starting assumption to verify, not a rule.

Fast facts

• Deprecated ≠ invalid. In every case the schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. type stays valid; Google keeps parsing it “for understanding.”
• Deprecated ≠ ranking change. Every primary post says removals don’t affect ranking.
• Book Actions is the one “announced but kept” type — don’t remove it off an old seven-item list.
• Bing has announced no parallel cutdown for any of these.
• Source of truth: the Google changelog — this table is the running summary of it.

Common mistakes with deprecated schema

Concrete mistakes worth naming, each with why it’s wrong and what to do instead.

Deleting deprecated markup because you assume it’s now invalid. Why it’s wrong: in every case in this timeline the schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. type stays valid, and Google says it keeps parsing it “for understanding” — deprecation removed the visual rich result, not the markup’s validity. What to do instead: leave the markup in place. There’s no cleanup emergency; Google explicitly says leftover structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. doesn’t cause problems.

Treating a lost rich result as a ranking drop. Why it’s wrong: every primary Google post in this timeline says these are display-only changes — “This update won’t affect how pages are ranked.” If a site’s rankings actually moved around the same time, the cause is something else, not the schema deprecation. What to do instead: separate the two investigations. Confirm the rich result loss via Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results.’s Enhancement reports, and look elsewhere for any real ranking change.

Investing in new FAQ or HowTo markup expecting a SERP visual payoff. Why it’s wrong: the rich result these types once unlocked is gone for most sites — FAQ fully removed May 7, 2026, HowTo fully removed Sep 14, 2023. Building fresh markup around either one for that reason spends effort on a dead feature. What to do instead: if the type still has value (entity understanding, Bing, other systems that read schema.org), keep it for that reason — not for a Google rich result that no longer appears.

Stripping Book ActionsBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result. markup because it showed up on an old “removed” list. Why it’s wrong: Book Actions was named in the June 12, 2025 announcement but explicitly excluded from the actual September 9, 2025 removal, and Google pulled its deprecation banner in November 2025, confirming the feature is still live. Aggregator listicles that just re-print the original seven-item list get this wrong. What to do instead: check the current status (this page’s reference table, or the Google changelog) before removing anything tied to that 2025 batch.

Deprecated-schema audit checklist

Work through this whenever a rich result you rely on disappears, or before acting on a “type X was deprecated” claim from another source.

• Identify which milestone is being cited. Confirm whether the source means the display date (rich result stops appearing) or a tooling date (Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. reporting, Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test/filter list, or Search Console APIA set of REST APIs that let you programmatically read and manage Google Search Console data for properties you've verified — Performance data, URL index status, sitemaps, and properties — authorized with OAuth 2.0.) — they can be months apart. Done: you can state the specific milestone and date, not just “it was deprecated.”
• Confirm the schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. type itself, not just the rich result. Check this page’s reference table or the Google changelog. Done: you know whether the type is still valid (it has been, in every case here).
• Leave existing markup in place unless it’s throwing validation errors or describing content that isn’t actually on the page. Done: no markup removed solely because a rich result vanished.
• Check Search ConsoleGoogle's free tool for monitoring crawling, indexing, and search performance.’s Enhancement reports for the affected type to see whether your own pages are flagged. Done: report reviewed, no unexplained errors tied to the deprecation itself.
• Don’t greenlight new markup for a dead rich result (fresh FAQ or HowTo built purely for a SERP visual). Done: any new-markup request is justified by a reason other than a removed rich result.
• Verify Book ActionsBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result. status specifically before touching that markup — it was announced for removal, then kept. Done: checked the current changelog entry, not an old seven-item list.
• Rule out a ranking-change explanation. If something else on the site moved in rankings around the same time, treat it as a separate investigation — Google says these are display changes only. Done: the two issues are tracked separately.

Quarterly schema-deprecation check

A recurring procedure — run this every quarter, not just when something breaks.

1. Open the Google Search Central documentation changelog and scan every entry since your last check. Done: you have a list of new changelog entries touching structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. or rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show..
2. Cross-reference each new entry against this page’s reference table. For any type not already listed, note the display date and any tooling dates (Search Console reporting, Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test/filter list, API) separately. Done: you can say, for each new item, exactly which milestone(s) have happened so far.
3. Pull Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results.’s Enhancement reports for any rich-result types your site actually uses. Done: confirmed there are no new warnings or drops in reported pages tied to a deprecation you weren’t aware of.
4. Update your own tracking doc or this table’s entry with the new finding, and flag it to anyone on the team who maintains markup for the affected type. Done: internal documentation reflects the current changelog, and no markup gets touched unless it’s erroring.
5. Re-confirm the standing facts still hold: the type stays valid, it’s a display change not a ranking change, and Book ActionsBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result.’ current status. Done: this quarter’s check closes with an explicit yes/no on all three, not an assumption carried over from last quarter.

Test yourself: Schema & Rich Result Deprecations

Five quick questions on the timeline and what “deprecated” really means. Pick an answer for each, then check.

Resources worth your time

My related writing

• Schema Markup: What It Is & How to Implement It — my Ahrefs guide; note it describes the 2023-era HowTo/FAQ framing, which this timeline updates past the later, fuller removals.
• Structured Data: What It Is and How to Use It — schema typesSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor., implementation, validation, and the shrinking supported list.
• The Beginner’s Guide to Technical SEO — where structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. and its deprecations fit in the bigger picture.

My speaking

• How Search Works (SlideShare) — my walkthrough of crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor., renderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM., indexingStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed., and how appearances like rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. are generated. (My standing disclaimer applies: “This is my understanding of systems… not going to be 100% complete or accurate.”)

Official

• Google Search Central documentation changelog — the running source of truth for every date in this table.
• Changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results (Mueller, Aug 2023) and Simplifying the search results page (Hsu, Jun 2025) — the two announcement posts.
• Structured Data Search Gallery — the live list of supported types.

From around the industry

• Google Retires 7 Structured Data Features To Streamline Search Results (Search Engine Journal) — contemporaneous coverage of the June 2025 batch.
• Google to drop support for several rich result types (Search Engine Land) — the June 2025 announcement, with the phased detail.
• Google to no longer support FAQ rich results (Search Engine Land, May 2026) — the full staged FAQ removal timeline (May 7 / June / August 2026) in one place.
• Google Drops FAQ Rich Results From Search (Search Engine Journal) — the FAQ removal and what stays valid.
• Structured Data After I/O 2026: Schema Cheat Sheet (Digital Applied) — a competing dated timeline (broader scope, mixes in schema.org releases and I/O news).

Schema & Rich Result Deprecations

The ongoing, piecemeal process by which Google (almost always Google, not Bing) stops showing a visual search-result enhancement for a schema.org-marked-up feature — even though the underlying schema.org type usually stays valid, parseable markup. A deprecation moves through a milestone chain that gets conflated into one date: announcement, when the visual rich result stops appearing, documentation removal, and tooling support removal (Search Console reporting, the Rich Results Test, then the API). 'Still valid' and 'still visible' are different things.

Related: Structured Data, Schema Markup, Rich Results

Schema & Rich Result Deprecations

Schema and rich result deprecations refers to the ongoing, feature-by-feature process by which Google stops showing a visual searchMultimodal search lets you query and get results across more than one modality — text, images, video, and audio together. Instead of typing words, you can point your camera, circle something on screen, or combine an image with a question, and the system understands them jointly.-result enhancement for a schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor.-marked-up feature, even though the underlying schema.org type usually remains valid, parseable markup.

A single deprecation moves through up to five milestones that casual coverage constantly conflates into one date, and not every deprecation gets all five:

• Announcement — Google posts that a feature will be phased out, sometimes with a future effective date (not always present).
• The display date — when the visual rich result stops appearing in Search results.
• Documentation removal — when Google pulls or redirectsA redirect sends browsers and crawlers from a requested URL to a different one. An HTTP redirect specifically is a 3xx status code paired with a Location header; meta refresh and JavaScript redirects achieve a similar navigation without being a 3xx response themselves. Permanent redirects (301/308) are Google's signal the target should be canonical; temporary ones (302/303/307) aren't. the type’s dedicated doc page; this doesn’t always follow the tooling date, either.
• The tooling date(s) — when Google removes reporting support, which trails the display date by weeks to months and itself unfolds in stages: Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. rich-result reporting first, then the Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test and the Search-appearance filter list, then finally the Search Console APIA set of REST APIs that let you programmatically read and manage Google Search Console data for properties you've verified — Performance data, URL index status, sitemaps, and properties — authorized with OAuth 2.0..

The schema.org vocabulary itself is not “deprecated” by any of this — only Google’s display of a specific type is. Across the whole cycle (HowTo in 2023, the June 2025 batch, FAQ in 2026) Google’s framing is consistent: the type stays valid, Google says it keeps parsing it “for understanding,” it just stops producing a visible SERP element. Google frames these as display changes, not ranking changes — though losing a rich result can still move clicks or impressions, which is a separate, measurable effect worth checking in Search ConsoleGoogle's free tool for monitoring crawling, indexing, and search performance..

Deprecation here is Google-Search-specific in nearly every documented case. Bing has not announced parallel removals for any of these types — an absence-of-evidence finding, not a stated Bing policy.

Related: Structured Data, Schema Markup, Rich Results

Changelog