49% of Top Sites Using Schema Still Ship Markup for Rich Results Google Retired

Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, 1 November 2026.

Nearly half of the world's most visited websites that use structured data on their homepage still ship markup for a Google rich result that no longer exists. A SaaS Link Building crawl of 1,567 top-site homepages on 1 November 2026 found 839 with schema markup, and 414 of those (49.3%) carried at least one type tied to a feature Google has retired: the sitelinks search box, FAQ rich results, how-to rich results or one of the six types Google phased out in 2025.

The largest leftover by far is the SearchAction block that once powered the sitelinks search box. Google stopped showing that box from 21 November 2024, yet 364 homepages in our sample (23.2%) still declare it, including those of Apple, Pinterest, Zoom, CNN, Walmart and NASA. FAQ markup, whose rich result Google switched off on 7 May 2026, is still on 66 homepages.

Key findings

• 53.5% of the 1,567 reachable top-site homepages (839) carry structured data in JSON-LD or microdata.
• 414 homepages (26.4% of all, 49.3% of those with markup) include at least one type for a retired Google feature.
• 356 of the 545 homepages with WebSite markup (65.3%) still nest a SearchAction inside it.
• 66 homepages (4.2%) still carry FAQPage markup, six months after the FAQ rich result disappeared. Salesforce, Wix, Squarespace, Coursera, Temu and Charles Schwab are among them.
• Only 4 homepages still use HowTo, retired in 2023, and just 1 uses a type from Google's 2025 retirement list (a Car entity, the vehicle listing type).

Four retirements, very different leftovers

Google has been trimming rich results for three years. The pattern in our data is that markup disappears quickly when the feature was niche, and lingers for years when the markup sits in a site-wide template.

How-to (2023). In August 2023 Google limited how-to rich results to desktop and restricted FAQ results to well-known government and health sites; an update to the same post says Google stopped showing how-to results on desktop from 13 September 2023. Only 4 homepages in our sample still use HowTo, and 2 of them are video downloader sites.

Sitelinks search box (2024). John Mueller announced the removal in October 2024, saying usage had dropped. Because the SearchAction lives inside the WebSite block that many themes and CMS plugins print on every homepage, it has survived almost untouched: 17.3% of homepages ranked 1 to 500 still carry it, rising to 24.6% for ranks 2,001 to 3,000.

The 2025 batch. In June 2025 Google said it would phase out book actions, course info, ClaimReview, estimated salary, learning video, special announcement and vehicle listing, later removing six of them from Search Console reporting on 9 September 2025 (book actions was kept). These types were rarely used on homepages in the first place, and only one homepage in our sample still has one.

FAQ (2026). Google added a deprecation notice on 8 May 2026 saying the FAQ rich result would no longer appear from 7 May, and removed the documentation entirely on 15 June 2026. In our follow-up fetch, the 59 homepages where FAQPage markup appeared again listed a median of 8 questions each. Many belong to SaaS, web hosting and domain companies.

By rank band

Tranco rank	Homepages fetched	Any structured data	SearchAction	FAQPage	Any retired type
1 to 500	226	109 (48.2%)	39 (17.3%)	8 (3.5%)	44 (19.5%)
501 to 1,000	247	139 (56.3%)	58 (23.5%)	9 (3.6%)	66 (26.7%)
1,001 to 2,000	590	304 (51.5%)	143 (24.2%)	19 (3.2%)	159 (26.9%)
2,001 to 3,000	504	287 (56.9%)	124 (24.6%)	30 (6.0%)	145 (28.8%)
All	1,567	839 (53.5%)	364 (23.2%)	66 (4.2%)	414 (26.4%)

Source: SaaS Link Building crawl, 1 November 2026. Percentages are shares of homepages fetched in each band. FAQ markup is almost twice as common in the 2,001 to 3,000 band as in the top 2,000.

Does leftover markup hurt?

Not according to Google. Its sitelinks search box announcement says site owners can remove the markup but have no need to, adding that "unsupported structured data like this won't cause issues in Search" and won't trigger Search Console errors. Its 2023 FAQ and how-to post said the same about unused markup, and the June 2025 post said use of the retired types outside Google Search was not affected.

So this is a hygiene finding, not a penalty risk. What the numbers show is how rarely structured data gets reviewed once it ships. Many teams treat schema as set-and-forget template code, much as our earlier studies found with homepage redirects for favicons and snippet controls in robots meta tags. Google changed its Search documentation dozens of times this year alone, as our changelog analysis found, and rich result support is one of the areas that moves most.

There is one practical catch. The WebSite block that holds the old SearchAction is the same markup Google uses for site names, which it says is the most important input if you want to state a preference. In our follow-up fetch, 65 homepages had a SearchAction but no WebSite entity with a usable name, so their markup gives Google nothing it currently uses for site names. Teams deleting the search box markup should keep the WebSite entity and its name.

The AI angle is also often misread. Google's guide to AI features says no special schema.org markup is needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, while its best practices ask that any structured data match the visible text on the page. Keeping FAQ markup for AI search is therefore a bet Google has not endorsed.

What SEO teams should do

1. Inventory your homepage schema. Run the homepage through the Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator, and list every @type. Compare it with Google's current search gallery, which no longer lists FAQ, how-to or sitelinks search box.
2. Keep what still works. WebSite with name (and alternateName if needed) for site names, Organization with logo and sameAs, and BreadcrumbList, which Google still shows on desktop.
3. Remove or leave the rest deliberately. Leftover SearchAction, FAQPage and HowTo cause no Google problems, but they add bytes and confuse audits. If another platform you care about uses them, document that reason in the template.
4. Re-check FAQ content on the page. The visible FAQ section may still help users. The markup alone no longer earns a Google rich result.
5. Watch the changelog. Every one of these retirements was posted on Google's documentation updates page first. Subscribing to its RSS feed is the cheapest early warning available.

Methodology

On 1 November 2026 (21:20 to 21:22 UTC) we requested the https homepage of each of the top 3,000 domains in the Tranco research ranking, using a desktop Chrome user agent, following redirects, with a 15-second timeout. Many Tranco entries are CDN, DNS and API domains with no public homepage; 330 returned HTTP 403, and others failed to connect. We kept 1,705 responses that returned HTTP 200 with HTML, then removed duplicates that redirected to the same final host, leaving 1,567 unique homepages.

We parsed every application/ld+json block, collected every @type at any nesting depth, and added schema.org itemtype values from microdata. A homepage counted as carrying a retired type if it contained SearchAction, FAQPage, HowTo, ClaimReview, SpecialAnnouncement, Vehicle, Car, Occupation, LearningResource or Quiz. Dataset and Book were excluded because Google still uses them in Dataset Search and book actions. Retirement dates come from Google's Search Central blog and documentation changelog.

A second fetch of the 795 homepages with JSON-LD (791 responded) checked whether WebSite entities had a name and counted FAQ questions. Pages were not rendered with JavaScript, so markup injected client-side is missed, and homepages only were tested: inner pages, where FAQ and how-to content usually sits, could show different rates.

Conclusion

Google retires rich results by changelog entry, but site templates do not update themselves. Twenty-three months after the sitelinks search box disappeared, nearly a quarter of top-site homepages still describe it to Google, and FAQ markup is following the same path. None of it hurts rankings, Google says, but each leftover block is a sign that nobody owns the schema.

The useful step is an audit that keeps the markup Google still reads, especially the WebSite name and Organization details, and makes a recorded decision about everything else.

Questions and answers

Does Google still show FAQ rich results?

No. Google's documentation changelog says the FAQ rich result stopped appearing in Google Search from 7 May 2026, and Google removed the FAQ structured data documentation on 15 June 2026.

Will leftover sitelinks search box or FAQ markup hurt my rankings?

Google says no. Its October 2024 sitelinks search box announcement says unsupported structured data won't cause issues in Search or trigger Search Console errors, and its August 2023 post on FAQ and how-to changes said unused structured data does not cause problems for Search.

Should I delete my WebSite structured data along with the SearchAction?

No. Google uses WebSite structured data on the homepage for site names and says it is the most important input for stating a site name preference. Remove only the SearchAction if you want, and keep the WebSite entity with its name.

Which structured data types did Google retire in 2025?

In June 2025 Google announced it would phase out book actions, course info, ClaimReview, estimated salary, learning video, special announcement and vehicle listing. Six of those were removed from Search Console reporting on 9 September 2025; Google later kept book actions because a feature still uses it.

Do I need special schema markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode?

Google's guide to AI features says there is no special schema.org structured data needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

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