Google said you will soon see fewer FAQ and HowTo rich results showing up in the Google Search results. Why? I assume because there is just too many of these rich results being displayed in search that Google is now making the benchmark to show them much higher. This is "rolling out globally, in all languages and countries, over the course of the next week," Google wrote. Although John Mueller from Google said nope.
Google said, "To provide a cleaner and more consistent search experience, we're changing how some rich results types are shown in Google's search results."
Also, you do not and probably should not, remove your structured data. The FAQPage structured data and HowTo structured data should likely stay on your pages. "While you can drop this structured data from your site, there's no need to proactively remove it. Structured data that's not being used does not cause problems for Search, but also has no visible effects in Google Search," Google wrote. Google added these rich results in 2019 and I guess it is being over done...
FAQ Rich Results Reserved For Authoritative Sites
Google said for FAQ rich results, they will "only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites" in the Google search results.
What about the other sites? Google said it may be shown but Google added it will "no longer be shown regularly" for all other sites.
How do you get your site to show these? Well, Google said "sites may automatically be considered for this treatment depending on their eligibility," so there is not much you can do but try to make your site better???
HowTo Rich Results On Desktop Search Only
When it comes to HowTo rich results, Google said it is removing them from the mobile search results and will only show them going forward on desktop search. Google said, "How-To (from HowTo structured data) rich results will only be shown for desktop users, and not for users on mobile devices."
What about mobile first indexing? Google said, "Note that with mobile indexing, Google indexes the mobile version of a website as the basis for indexing: to have How-To rich results shown on desktop, the mobile version of your website must include the appropriate markup."
Here is a before and after screenshot from Google of an FAQ rich result going away:
Search Console Changes
I hope none of you lose your rich results here but I'd expect a lot of us to see them disappear. That means that you may see less traffic from Google search and a drop in click-through rates in Search Console.
Google addressed this in their blog post by writing, "For both of these items, you may also notice this change in the Search Console reporting for your website. In particular, this will be visible in the metrics shown for FAQ and How-To search appearances in the performance report, and in the number of impressions reported in the appropriate enhancement reports. This change does not affect the number of items reported in the enhancement reports. The search appearances, and the reports, will remain in Search Console for the time being."
Google posted in the Search Console data anomalies help document under the performance report and rich results report on August 8, 2023:
Google Search is showing HowTo and FAQ rich results types less frequently. FAQ rich results will only be shown for a very limited number of sites. HowTo rich results will only be shown on desktop devices. As a result, you will see the number of reported impressions for these types drop.
Other Things To Know
Here is a screenshot of a snippet you might want to check in a week or two:
And as someone who loved adding how-to markup to my tutorials, this is a killer to see on mobile. That amazing SERP treatment is now gone. Only a list on desktop remains. Ugh. :) pic.twitter.com/BtmG1AyX7A
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 8, 2023
I should add, Google has shown fewer rich results over the years many times, so this should not come as a huge surprise to many.
I bet a lot of you are saying, well Google got our structured data now and there is zero reward for it... I get you...
John Mueller from Google did say this is independent of abuse or overuse :)
Independent of abuse / over-use, things can change on the web / with users / with focus shifts, and it's important to clean up from time to time. (And it's a good reminder to read up about the tragedy of the commons :-)).
— John Mueller (official) · #MaybeABot (@JohnMu) August 8, 2023
More JohnMu Q&A:
How-To is not going away, but in general: While you can drop this structured data from your site, there's no need to proactively remove it. Structured data that's not being used does not cause problems for Search, but also has no visible effects in Google Search.
— John Mueller (official) · #MaybeABot (@JohnMu) August 9, 2023
Structured data doesn't drive "people also ask". I'd use SD when you have specific search features you want to be eligible for, or (very simplified) if your content might otherwise be confusing to search engines. Questions + answers in HTML doesn't feel confusing to me.
— John Mueller (official) · #MaybeABot (@JohnMu) August 9, 2023
Unless you're working on one of the supported site types, I would invest the time into other things.
— John Mueller (official) · #MaybeABot (@JohnMu) August 9, 2023
There's room for long & interesting discussions on what "understand the content better" could involve, but it feels more suited to a cozy discussion group rather than X/Twitter (where sometimes "understand better" = "find loopholes & argue out of context").
— John Mueller (official) · #MaybeABot (@JohnMu) August 9, 2023
Ryan Levering from Google added on Mastodon, "FAQ was out of control IMO... It was making structured data look like a spam vector, like aggregate ratings abuse."
And it has begun:
And here we go. Isolating how-to snippets in GSC on mobile yields a massive drop in impressions and clicks (as how-to snippets were removed as of yesterday from the mobile SERPs). Will be interesting to see the change in CTR for sites that heavily used how-to markup. pic.twitter.com/U1pcgPbhLS
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 9, 2023
Hey look, I have a new type of how-to snippet! It's called SGE. :) The first few steps are taken from my tutorial, then mixed with some other content covering the topic. But you can see my post has the featured snippet w/the steps listed there. At least I have the FS for now... pic.twitter.com/J54syXH7ti
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 9, 2023
As tracked by the @seoClarity keyword dataset, the number of keywords showing FAQs dropped sharply in April on mobile, and then in March for desktop.
— Mark Traphagen 🏳️🌈 (they/them) (@marktraphagen) August 9, 2023
Next week I'll be able to show you the results of this weeks drop as it has affected a number of industries we track. pic.twitter.com/i2tMEKLQJI
Forum discussion at Twitter and Black Hat World Forums and WebmasterWorld.
