Google's Structured Data Deprecations: The Complete 2026 Guide for Website Owners

What Happened: The Full Timeline

Between June 2025 and May 2026, Google executed one of the most significant rollbacks of structured data support in its history. The company retired a total of eight rich-result types across two separate announcements — removing visual enhancements that website owners had spent years implementing. Understanding the precise sequence of these changes is critical for any SEO professional or site owner managing a structured data strategy.

Here is the complete timeline of Google's structured data removals:

This cascade of changes is part of a deliberate Google strategy to simplify the Search results page and redirect resources toward AI-powered search features. For website owners who relied on these visual enhancements to stand out in crowded SERPs, the impact on click-through rates requires immediate attention — even if rankings themselves remain stable.

In this post, we will break down every change in detail, explain the real-world impact for different industries, and give you a concrete action plan. This is also relevant if you're planning your SEO Thailand strategy, since these global changes affect all markets.

The 7 Deprecated Structured Data Types (June 2025)

On June 12, 2025, Google's Search Product Manager Henry Hsu officially announced the retirement of seven structured data types. Each had previously enabled visual enhancements — often called "rich results" or "rich snippets" — that made search listings more visually prominent and informative. Here is what each type did and why it mattered:

1. Book Actions

Book Actions schema allowed publishers and booksellers to display interactive action buttons — such as "Buy," "Preview," or "Read" — directly alongside book listings in Google Search. For publishers, this was a powerful way to drive direct purchase intent from the SERP without requiring a click. Google initially removed Book Actions in June 2025, though as of mid-2026, the company quietly removed the deprecation banner from its documentation, suggesting some limited support may remain for specific implementations.

2. Course Info

Course Info structured data enabled e-learning platforms and educational institutions to display rich course details directly in search results — including course title, provider name, course description, learning outcomes, and even pricing. Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and university websites relied heavily on this schema type. Its removal represents a significant blow to online education marketers who used rich course snippets to capture high-intent learners at the point of search.

3. Claim Review

The ClaimReview schema was designed specifically for fact-checking organizations. It allowed verified fact-checkers to display confirmation or refutation labels directly alongside headlines and article excerpts in Google Search. Organizations like Reuters Fact Check, PolitiFact, and Snopes used this markup. Its removal reduces the visible signals of fact-checking credibility directly in search results, though the underlying content continues to be indexed normally.

4. Estimated Salary

Job posting sites and HR platforms used Estimated Salary structured data to show compensation ranges directly in search results for job-related queries. This was especially valuable for platforms competing in the highly competitive employment search space, as salary visibility was proven to increase click-through rates for job listings. Alternatives like Job Posting schema (which remains supported) can still be used, though without the explicit salary-range enrichment.

5. Learning Video

Learning Video schema was a specialized extension of VideoObject markup designed specifically for educational content. It allowed platforms to mark up educational videos with additional metadata — including educational level, learning resource type, and educational use — enabling richer displays in Google's video search results and the main SERP for educational queries. Basic VideoObject markup remains fully supported and continues to power video rich results.

6. Special Announcement

Special Announcement schema was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to help organizations rapidly communicate urgent public health information, business closures, and emergency updates directly in search results. By 2025, with the acute phase of the pandemic long over, Google determined the feature no longer served widespread utility. Government agencies and healthcare providers that still need to communicate urgent information should instead focus on structured news and article markup.

7. Vehicle Listing

Vehicle Listing structured data allowed automotive dealers and car listing platforms to display detailed vehicle specifications — including make, model, year, price, and mileage — directly in search results. For dealerships and automotive marketplaces competing for high-value purchase-intent queries, this was a significant source of click-through advantage. Sites should now rely on standard Product schema to communicate key specifications.

FAQ Rich Results Removed: The May 2026 Update

Just as the SEO community was adjusting to the June 2025 deprecations, Google delivered another significant change on May 7, 2026: FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search for the vast majority of websites.

Google's documentation now states explicitly: "As of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results are no longer appearing in Google Search." The FAQ rich result — the expandable question-and-answer dropdowns that appeared directly below some search listings — had already been restricted in late 2023 to "authoritative government and health websites" only. The May 2026 update effectively ends FAQ rich results for nearly all commercial websites.

This is a critical distinction that many site owners are still misunderstanding:

• The FAQPage schema type itself is not gone. Schema.org's FAQPage vocabulary remains valid and Google can still parse it.
• FAQ rich results in search are gone. The visual dropdown expansions in the SERP are no longer displayed for most sites.
• FAQ content still matters. Pages that clearly answer questions in well-structured content remain valuable for People Also Ask boxes and featured snippets — just not through FAQPage rich result markup.

For agencies and businesses that invested in FAQPage markup specifically to earn those expandable SERP features, the practical takeaway is: stop expecting that markup to generate visible rich results. The value of FAQ content now lives in the underlying text and its ability to win featured snippet and PAA placements organically.

Why Google Is Removing These Features

Google's stated reason for these removals is consistent across all announcements: these structured data types were "not commonly used in Search" and were "no longer providing significant additional value for users." But there are several deeper strategic forces at work.

Preparing for AI-First Search

Google is actively evolving its search experience toward AI-generated summaries (AI Overviews) and conversational interfaces. The legacy rich-result framework — which was designed for a visually structured SERP of ten blue links with enhancements — is increasingly misaligned with this direction. By retiring low-adoption schema types, Google is streamlining its indexing systems to focus on signals that power AI understanding: entity relationships, E-E-A-T signals, and factual content quality.

Low Adoption Rates

Internal Google data showed that the seven deprecated types were implemented by a relatively small proportion of sites and generated minimal incremental value for users compared to the operational overhead of maintaining them. Special Announcement schema, introduced in an emergency context in 2020, saw predictably declining usage as pandemic conditions normalized. Estimated Salary and Vehicle Listing were niche enough that most sites in those sectors never adopted them.

Reducing Abuse Potential

Some structured data types had been used by webmasters to game SERP features — adding markup that didn't accurately reflect page content. By retiring types with lower oversight, Google reduces surface area for manipulation while focusing its quality enforcement on higher-traffic schema types like Product and Review, where spam has real commercial impact.

Simplifying the Results Page

Every rich result type adds visual complexity to the SERP. Google's user research consistently shows that simpler, cleaner results pages perform better for user satisfaction scores. Removing rarely-seen visual enhancements makes Search faster to render and easier to scan.

Impact on Rankings and CTR: The Real Numbers

Google has been unambiguous on one point: these deprecations do not affect search rankings. Your page's position in the SERP is determined by Google's ranking algorithms, and structured data types — deprecated or active — are not direct ranking factors. If your site was ranking position 3 for a query using Course Info schema, it will continue to rank at position 3 after the deprecation.

However, the impact on click-through rate is a different story, and it's where site owners should be paying close attention.

Rich Results and CTR: The Data

The practical implication: if your site was relying on deprecated schema types to generate visual differentiation in the SERP, that CTR advantage is now gone. Sites in education, automotive, and publishing need to compensate by doubling down on supported schema types and improving other click-worthiness signals — compelling title tags, meta descriptions, and structured content that earns featured snippets organically.

For a comprehensive view of how your site is performing across these dimensions, a professional SEO Audit can identify where you're losing CTR and prioritize the highest-impact improvements.

Industry-by-Industry Impact Breakdown

The impact of Google's structured data deprecations is not evenly distributed. Certain industries were significantly more reliant on these features than others. Here is a breakdown by sector:

Education and E-Learning

Platforms built around Course Info schema face the biggest adjustment. If your site was using this markup to display course descriptions, instructors, and learning outcomes in search results, those visual enhancements are gone. The priority shift for education sites should be toward: Video schema for course preview content, Article schema for blog and educational resources, and strong E-E-A-T signals through author bios, credentials, and institutional trust indicators. Platforms targeting students and learners should also review their Education Marketing strategy to compensate for lost SERP visibility through other channels.

Automotive and Vehicle Marketplaces

Dealers and automotive listing platforms lose the Vehicle Listing rich result. These sites should transition to Product schema for individual listings, ensuring price, availability, and condition are marked up correctly. The Carousel schema can also be used for inventory listing pages to create multi-item rich results. Review and AggregateRating markup for dealer and vehicle reviews remains a high-impact alternative.

Publishing and Media

Book Actions deprecation affects publishers who were using interactive buy/preview buttons in book-related searches. Standard Article and Book (schema.org type) markup should be prioritized, with a focus on earning Featured Snippet placements for book-related queries. For news publishers, Article schema with NewsArticle extensions remains fully supported and valuable.

Job Boards and HR Platforms

The loss of Estimated Salary schema hurts job listing visibility. Job Posting schema itself remains fully supported and provides significant rich result features including job title, employer, location, and description. Focus on maximizing the completeness of Job Posting markup to retain as much SERP differentiation as possible.

Fact-Checking and News Organizations

ClaimReview schema deprecation removes a formal signal of fact-checking credibility from the SERP. News organizations should focus on NewsArticle schema, strong E-E-A-T signals, and ensuring author authority is properly marked up using Person schema to maintain trust signals in search results.

General Websites and Agencies

If your site was not using any of the deprecated types, your immediate impact is low. However, the May 2026 FAQ rich results deprecation affects virtually every business website that had FAQ sections marked up with FAQPage schema. Reassess whether that investment still makes sense and redirect effort toward Organization, BreadcrumbList, and — for content publishers — Article schema.

Changes in Google Search Console

Google also updated Search Console in parallel with the deprecation announcements. These changes affect how you monitor and report on structured data performance. Starting September 8, 2025, Google removed:

• Rich result reports for all seven deprecated schema types
• Support for the deprecated types in the Rich Results Test tool
• Appearance filters related to these structured data types

For teams that track structured data performance in Google Search Console or export data to BigQuery for analysis, there is an important technical change you must make. Starting October 1, 2025, deprecated appearance fields began returning NULL in bulk data exports. If your queries assume non-null values for these fields, they will break silently or return incorrect results.

Google's recommended fix is to update any queries that filter on these appearance fields:

Old Query (will fail or return wrong results after October 2025):

AND NOT is_learning_videos

New Recommended Query (handles NULL correctly):

AND is_learning_videos IS NOT TRUE

This pattern applies to all seven deprecated appearance types. Review any automated dashboards, scheduled queries, or Looker Studio reports that reference these fields and update them accordingly. Teams managing large-scale data pipelines should treat this as a breaking change and prioritize it before the next reporting cycle.

Schema Types That Still Deliver Rich Results in 2026

Amid all the deprecations, it is important to be clear: structured data remains one of the highest-ROI SEO investments available. Pages with rich results earn significantly higher click-through rates than plain blue-link listings. The question is which schema types to prioritize in 2026.

Google currently supports rich results for the following schema types:

High Priority (Broad Applicability, High CTR Impact)

Medium Priority (Vertical-Specific)

For e-commerce businesses in particular, keeping up with Ecommerce SEO best practices is essential — Product schema with complete pricing, availability, and review data is one of the most impactful structured data investments remaining in 2026.

The Role of Structured Data in AI Overviews

Beyond traditional rich results, there is a growing secondary value for structured data: AI Overviews. Google's AI-generated summaries draw on clearly structured, entity-rich content. Schema markup helps Google understand the entities on your page — who wrote it, what it's about, who it's for, what product or service it covers — which in turn improves the likelihood of your content being sourced in AI Overview responses. This is an increasingly important dimension of structured data value that goes beyond visible SERP features.

Your 6-Step Action Plan

If your website currently uses any of the deprecated structured data types — or if you want to ensure your overall schema strategy is optimized for 2026 — here is the exact sequence of steps to take:

Step 1: Audit Your Current Structured Data

Before making any changes, you need to know exactly what schema markup is currently on your site. Use Google's Rich Results Test tool to check individual pages, or run a site-wide crawl using a tool like Screaming Frog (with structured data extraction enabled) to generate a full inventory. Export results to a spreadsheet and flag any pages using the deprecated types: Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, Vehicle Listing, and FAQPage (for rich result intent).

Step 2: Check Google Search Console for Errors

Navigate to the Enhancements section in Search Console (previously called the Rich Results section). While reports for the deprecated types have been removed, you may still see lingering errors or warnings. More importantly, review the performance of your remaining rich result types to establish a baseline before making any changes.

Step 3: Update or Remove Deprecated Markup

Google will not penalize you for leaving deprecated markup in place — it will simply be ignored. However, from a code hygiene perspective, deprecated markup adds unnecessary weight to your pages and can confuse developers who work on the site later. Plan a systematic removal in your next development sprint, prioritizing high-traffic pages first.

Step 4: Implement and Strengthen Supported Schema Types

For each deprecated type you're removing, identify the best supported alternative and implement it properly. Education pages that used Course Info should now focus on VideoObject for course previews and Article schema for course descriptions. Automotive pages that used Vehicle Listing should implement Product schema. Ensure all supported schema is complete, accurate, and validated using the Rich Results Test before publishing.

Step 5: Update Your BigQuery Queries and Dashboards

If you use Google's Search Console bulk data export in BigQuery, update any queries that filter on deprecated appearance fields. Change AND NOT field_name patterns to AND field_name IS NOT TRUE for all deprecated types. Audit your Looker Studio dashboards and any automated SEO reports to ensure they do not rely on these now-null fields.

Step 6: Monitor and Iterate

Set up monthly reviews of your rich result performance in Search Console. Track impressions and CTR for each active schema type. After implementing new schema or removing deprecated markup, allow at least 4–6 weeks before evaluating impact, as Google recrawls and recaches pages on varying schedules. Keep an eye on the Google Search Central Blog and @googlesearchc on social media for new deprecation announcements.

For businesses seeking a comprehensive review of their entire digital presence, exploring services like Agencies that specialize in technical SEO and structured data can accelerate this process significantly.

How to Future-Proof Your Structured Data Strategy

Google's series of structured data deprecations from 2025 to 2026 is a clear signal: no schema type is permanent. The features you invest in today may not exist in their current form in two years. Building a resilient structured data strategy means thinking beyond any single rich result type.

Build on Schema.org Foundations, Not Google Extensions

Schema.org's vocabulary is maintained by a consortium of search engines and has much greater longevity than Google-specific extensions. Markup based on standard Schema.org types — even if Google stops supporting a specific rich result display — retains value for other search engines, AI parsers, and knowledge graph applications. Always use JSON-LD format, which Google recommends and which is easiest to maintain independently of your page HTML.

Validate Early and Validate Often

Make structured data validation part of your standard QA process. Before any new page template goes live, run it through Google's Rich Results Test and Schema.org's validator. Schedule monthly crawls of your site's structured data using an automated tool. Catching schema errors early prevents the gradual accumulation of broken markup that can quietly undermine your SERP performance.

Prioritize E-E-A-T Signals in Your Markup

Google's 2024–2026 search quality rater guidelines place enormous emphasis on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Schema markup plays a direct role in signaling these qualities. Use Person schema to mark up authors with their credentials, link to their Wikipedia page or professional profiles. Use Organization schema to connect your brand to verified business information. Use Review and AggregateRating schema to surface authentic social proof. These signals matter more than ever as Google evaluates content quality for AI Overview sourcing.

Think in Entities, Not Just Markup

The future of structured data is entity-based. Google's Knowledge Graph connects entities — people, organizations, products, locations, concepts — and understands how they relate to each other. Markup that helps Google understand what your page is about, who created it, what entities it discusses, and how those entities relate is more valuable long-term than markup designed primarily to generate a specific visual SERP feature. This is especially true as AI Overviews increasingly surface entity-connected content.

Diversify Your Traffic Sources

Perhaps the most important lesson from this series of deprecations is that SERP features you do not control can disappear. Building organic traffic resilience means diversifying: invest in building brand authority that earns direct search traffic, develop email lists and social audiences that are algorithm-independent, and use structured data as one component of a broader digital marketing strategy rather than the centerpiece. For businesses operating in competitive markets like Thailand, integrating structured data with a holistic SEO Thailand approach is the most sustainable path forward.

Follow Official Sources — Not Just SEO Blogs

The authoritative source for all structured data changes is the Google Search Central Blog and the official developers.google.com documentation. Many secondary SEO publications report on Google updates with delays or inaccuracies. Subscribe to Google's official newsletter or set up a Google Alert for "Search Central" to get deprecation announcements directly from the source before they impact your rankings or reporting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will removing structured data hurt my search rankings?

No. Google has stated explicitly that neither implementing nor removing structured data directly affects your search rankings. Structured data influences how your listing appears in the SERP (rich snippets, enhanced displays), not where it ranks. Your position in search results is determined by Google's core ranking algorithms, which evaluate content quality, backlinks, page experience, and relevance — not schema markup.

Do I need to urgently remove deprecated structured data from my site?

No, there is no urgent need to remove it immediately. Google will simply ignore deprecated markup rather than penalizing you for having it. However, you should plan to remove it in your next scheduled development sprint as part of general code hygiene. Deprecated markup adds unnecessary code weight and can create confusion for developers maintaining the site in future.

Which structured data types give the best results in 2026?

For most websites, the highest-ROI schema types in 2026 are Product (especially with AggregateRating for star ratings), Article/BlogPosting, BreadcrumbList, and Organization. E-commerce sites should prioritize complete Product schema. Local businesses should focus on LocalBusiness schema. Video content should always use VideoObject markup. The key principle is to implement schema types that match your actual content and that Google still supports for rich result displays.

What happened to FAQ schema — can I still use it?

FAQPage schema as a vocabulary type still exists and Google can parse it, but as of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results (the expandable Q&A dropdowns in search) are no longer shown for most websites. They are now restricted to authoritative government and health websites only. For commercial websites and agencies, implementing new FAQPage markup specifically to earn rich results no longer makes sense. FAQ content still matters for winning featured snippets and People Also Ask placements, but through content quality rather than schema markup.

How do I audit my site for deprecated structured data?

The most reliable methods are: (1) Use Google's Rich Results Test tool to check individual URLs for deprecated markup types. (2) Run a site-wide crawl with Screaming Frog with structured data extraction enabled — this produces a spreadsheet of all schema types found across your site. (3) Check the Enhancements tab in Google Search Console for any legacy warnings. (4) If you have a CMS or plugin that auto-generates schema (like Yoast SEO or Rank Math on WordPress), check whether those plugins have been updated to exclude deprecated types.

What should education websites do now that Course Info is deprecated?

Education websites that relied on Course Info schema should take a multi-step approach. First, implement VideoObject schema on any course preview or tutorial videos — this keeps educational content visually prominent in video search results. Second, use Article/BlogPosting schema on educational resource pages. Third, focus on building E-E-A-T signals through instructor bio pages with Person schema and institutional Organization markup. Fourth, consider the Course Carousel schema (a supported alternative for lists of courses) where applicable. Finally, review your overall education marketing strategy to compensate for the loss of course-specific rich results through paid and social channels.

Does structured data still matter for AI Overviews?

Yes, and this is increasingly important. While structured data does not directly determine whether your content appears in Google's AI Overviews, it significantly improves Google's ability to understand your content's entities, context, and credibility. Pages with clear entity markup (who wrote the content, what organization published it, what topic it covers) are better positioned to be sourced in AI-generated summaries. As AI Overviews become a more prominent feature of Google Search, entity-rich structured data becomes more valuable, not less.

Where can I check if Google has added new structured data deprecations?

The most reliable sources are: Google Search Central Blog (search.google.com/search-console/about), the Google Search Central Documentation at developers.google.com/search, and the @googlesearchc account on social media. For a regularly updated summary of supported schema types, the Google Search Gallery (developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery) is the definitive reference. Set up Google Alerts for "structured data deprecation" or "Google Search Central" to be notified of changes as soon as they are published.