Check Search Console’s structured data reports for actual impressions and clicks attributable to FAQ rich result display, and weigh that real number against your site’s category and the maintenance cost of keeping the markup current. Since Google’s August 2023 restriction limited FAQ rich result visibility to a small named category (authoritative government and health sites), the diagnostic question for most sites has a fairly predictable likely answer built in: if your site isn’t in that named exempt category, the realistic expectation is that measured benefit will be at or near zero, and the data should confirm or, less commonly, contradict that expectation rather than the conclusion being assumed without checking.
The diagnostic approach
Pull actual FAQ rich result performance data, not an assumption. Search Console’s structured-data-specific reports (where FAQ rich result status and performance are still surfaced) will show whether your pages are generating impressions specifically attributable to the FAQ display feature. Post-2023, this report is considerably sparser for most sites than it was previously, which is itself informative, a report that used to show meaningful FAQ-feature impressions and now shows near-zero is direct evidence the restriction has applied to your site.
Segment by whether your site plausibly falls into Google’s retained category. Google’s own 2023 announcement named authoritative government and health sites as the specific retained exception. If your site doesn’t fall into either category, the diagnostic expectation going in should already be that FAQ rich result display is unlikely, and the data-check is confirming rather than discovering that. If your site does plausibly fall into one of those categories, the data-check is more genuinely open-ended, since some continued display is plausible and worth verifying directly rather than assuming either way.
Weigh the maintenance cost independently of the benefit question. Even a small amount of continued rich-result value doesn’t automatically justify keeping FAQ schema if the maintenance burden is meaningful (markup that needs to be kept in sync with actual on-page FAQ content, that adds page weight, that represents one more thing that can generate validation errors or warnings in Search Console requiring investigation). The honest framing is a cost-benefit comparison, not a binary “does it work at all” question, since even confirmed non-zero benefit could still be outweighed by ongoing maintenance cost, depending on how much upkeep the specific implementation actually requires.
What the data will most likely show, and why that’s not a foregone conclusion to skip the check
For the large majority of sites outside the government/health exemption, the realistic, evidence-grounded expectation is that Search Console will show minimal to no impressions or clicks specifically attributable to FAQ rich result display, since that’s the direct, documented consequence of the 2023 restriction. But this shouldn’t be treated as a foregone conclusion that makes the actual data check unnecessary. Individual site situations vary (some sites may have had comparatively little FAQ rich-result traffic even before the restriction, making the “loss” less noticeable in the data; others may be surprised by genuinely still seeing some continued display in edge cases Google hasn’t fully documented), and the maintenance-cost side of the equation is genuinely site-specific regardless of the benefit finding. The data should drive the conclusion, not replace the need to look.
Why the conclusion shouldn’t be assumed as a blanket “always remove it” rule
It’s tempting, given how predictable the benefit-side finding usually is post-2023, to jump straight to “remove all FAQ schema everywhere,” but that overshoots what the diagnostic actually supports. Two considerations argue against a universal removal rule: first, a small number of sites may genuinely fall into or near the retained exception category and show real continued benefit worth preserving; second, and more broadly applicable, FAQ markup that accurately reflects a genuinely useful on-page FAQ section has independent value for users and assistive technology regardless of rich-result display, so the removal decision, where benefit is confirmed to be zero, should still be made separately from whether the underlying FAQ content itself is worth keeping on the page in prose form. The schema markup and the FAQ content are two different things, and this diagnostic is specifically about the markup’s SERP-feature value, not a verdict on the content itself.
A hypothetical illustration of the check paying off
Hypothetically, imagine a general consumer-tech blog, “Circuit & Signal,” that kept FAQ schema on hundreds of articles since well before the 2023 restriction and never revisited it. Running the Search Console check described above shows, as expected for a site outside the government/health exemption, essentially no impressions attributable to FAQ rich result display anymore. The team removes the schema markup from the templates, cutting page weight and one recurring source of validation warnings, while deliberately keeping the underlying FAQ prose on the page itself, since that content still answers real reader questions regardless of whether it triggers a rich result. In this scenario, the value of running the check first, rather than assuming, is that it turns a decision that could otherwise be based on general industry pattern into one grounded in this specific site’s actual data.
Practical conclusion
Run the Search Console check before making any decision. If it confirms near-zero measurable benefit (the likely outcome for most non-exempt sites) and the markup carries real ongoing maintenance cost, removing the schema (while potentially keeping the underlying FAQ content itself, if it’s genuinely useful to readers) is a reasonable, data-supported decision. If the check surprises you with continued measurable benefit, that’s a site-specific finding worth investigating further rather than dismissing because it doesn’t match the general post-2023 pattern.
