Google Announced its Intention to Reduce the Prevalence of FAQ and How To Rich Results in Search

Google has announced its Intention to Reduce the Prevalence of FAQ and HowTo Rich Results in its search results.

This move comes in response to the overwhelming number of these rich results flooding search results pages in recent months.

In an effort to provide a more refined and consistent search experience, Google is adjusting its criteria for displaying these results, raising the bar for their appearance.

The rollout of this change will be executed globally across all languages and regions within the next week, according to Google's statement.

However, John Mueller of Google has contradicted this claim.

According to Google's statement, "To enhance the cleanliness and uniformity of the search experience, we are modifying the display of certain types of rich results in Google's search outcomes."

Importantly, website owners are advised against removing their structured data, specifically the FAQPage and HowTo structured data.

Google suggests retaining these data types on web pages, as their absence doesn't cause issues for Search and doesn't have visible impacts on Google Search.

These rich results were introduced by Google in 2019, but there are concerns they've been overly utilized.

For FAQ rich results, Google now plans to exclusively showcase them for well-established, authoritative government, and health websites.

While other sites might still have a chance to display them, these results will no longer be consistently presented for all other sites.

Regarding eligibility for these rich results, Google indicates that sites might automatically be considered, leaving website owners with little control over the selection process.

Conversely, in the case of HowTo rich results, Google is discontinuing their appearance in mobile search results, reserving them solely for desktop search. Google clarified that How-To rich results will be available only to desktop users and not to those on mobile devices.

Google also notes that for mobile-first indexing, the desktop website version must include the appropriate markup for How-To rich results to be displayed.

For SEO's and Data Marketers, this change will likely impact the metrics visible in Search Console, affecting the performance report and enhancement reports. While some websites may witness a decrease in Google search traffic and click-through rates due to the decreased visibility of rich results, these changes will be reflected in Search Console metrics. Other tools monitoring rich results may experience drops in keyword rankings, site visibility and traffic.

Notably, Google has undergone similar adjustments to rich results in the past, making this current move a familiar occurrence.

Despite these changes, John Mueller from Google has emphasized that this decision is not tied to concerns about abuse or overuse of structured data.

Ryan Levering from Google's Mastodon further commented that the proliferation of FAQ rich results had become problematic, likening them to spam vectors and aggregate ratings abuse.

As Google's adjustments take effect in due time, website owners and users alike will observe the evolving landscape of search result changes, potentially leading to more refined and valuable outcomes. These results are yet to be determined.