FAQ schema questions and answers, labeled for machines.

FAQ schema is structured data, using the schema.org FAQPage type, that marks up a list of questions and their answers so machines can read them as question and answer pairs. Prefer’s free FAQ schema generator builds valid JSON-LD for it in a few minutes. It is usually added as a JSON-LD script in the page’s HTML.

How FAQ schema works#

You describe the page as an FAQPage whose mainEntity is a list of Question items, each with an acceptedAnswer of type Answer. A minimal example:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [{
    "@type": "Question",
    "name": "Do you offer a free trial?",
    "acceptedAnswer": {
      "@type": "Answer",
      "text": "Yes. Every paid plan starts with a free trial."
    }
  }]
}

Google says it uses structured data to understand page content, and its structured data guidelines require that markup describe content visible to the user. FAQ schema is one kind of schema markup; the questions and answers in it should be the same ones a reader sees on the page.

What changed with Google#

For years FAQ schema was popular because it could expand a search result with dropdown questions. That benefit is gone:

• In August 2023 Google limited FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health websites.
• On 7 May 2026 Google stopped showing FAQ rich results in Search, as recorded with sources in our answer does schema help AI citations? and in the Search Central updates log.

So adding FAQ schema today will not change how your result looks in Google.

Does FAQ schema matter for AI search?#

Not as a direct lever. Google’s documentation on AI features says you do not need special schema.org structured data to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond normal SEO best practice. Other engines do not publish rules that reward FAQPage markup.

What still holds: a page with a real question and answer block is easy to parse, and each answer can be lifted as a self-contained passage. That benefit comes from the writing. The markup only labels it.

Example#

A software company’s pricing page ends with six questions: trials, refunds, seats, billing cycles, data export and cancellations. Each answer is two sentences and starts with the direct answer. FAQ schema mirrors those six pairs. When an engine retrieves the page for “does this tool have a free trial,” the clear on-page answer is what gets quoted. The markup made the structure explicit; it did not create the reason to cite.

Common confusions#

• FAQ schema is not a ranking boost. Google never described it as one, and the rich result is now gone.
• It is not for content users cannot see. Marking up hidden questions breaks Google’s guidelines.
• It is not the same as People Also Ask. People Also Ask is a Google results feature built from many sites. FAQ schema is markup on your own page.

How Prefer helps#

Prefer gives you the free FAQ schema generator and the schema generator for clean markup, then shows what actually happens in AI answers: which pages ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode cite for your prompts. That tells you whether your answers are being used, which no markup can promise.