Google Structured Data Changes: 2026 Running Log

Google changes its structured data support more often than most SEO advice acknowledges, and rarely with a headline announcement, most changes arrive as a quiet edit to a documentation page. The result is a field full of guides confidently recommending features that no longer exist.

This is a maintained log of what has actually changed, verified against Google's own documentation update feed rather than secondhand coverage. It covers removals, additions, and tooling changes. We update it as Google publishes changes; the date below reflects the last revision.

Last updated: July 2026. Primary source: Google Search Central's documentation updates feed and the structured data gallery.

How to read this

A recurring confusion runs through everything below, so it's worth stating once:

"Deprecated" almost always means the rich result ended, not the markup. When Google retires a feature, the schema.org type usually remains valid, your markup still validates and causes no harm. What ends is the visual treatment in Search. There is no ranking penalty for retired markup; Google has stated this repeatedly. Where a change genuinely affects the markup itself rather than just the display, we say so explicitly.

With that framing, here's the record.

2026

May 7: FAQ rich results removed. FAQPage rich results, the expandable Q&A dropdowns under a listing, stopped appearing in Google Search. The change was made via a deprecation notice on the FAQ documentation, not a blog post. Tooling retires in stages: Search Console reporting and Rich Results Test support end in June 2026, and Search Console API support ends in August 2026, after which dashboards pulling that field return null. Crucially, this removed the last remaining eligibility, including for the authoritative government and health sites that had kept it since 2023. FAQPage remains valid markup, and it's distinct from QAPage, which is still supported. Full detail in Is FAQ Schema Dead?.

January: Practice Problem support removed from tooling. Following a deprecation notice, Google removed Practice Problem support from Search Console rich result reporting, the Rich Results Test, and the search appearance filters. Search Console API support for the type continued through January 2026.

Merchant shipping policy documentation added. Google added documentation for merchant-level shipping policy markup, letting merchants specify shipping policies at the organization level rather than repeating them per product. This pairs with the organization-level return policy support and is relevant to any store with a consistent policy, see the Product schema guide.

Google-Pinpoint fetcher added. Google added the Google-Pinpoint fetcher, a user-triggered fetcher used by the Pinpoint research tool, to its list of crawlers. Not a structured data change as such, but relevant if you manage crawler access, since it's a new user agent to be aware of.

Dataset clarification. Google clarified in its documentation that Dataset structured data is used only by Dataset Search, not by general Google Search. No change to the markup, a clarification of where the feature applies.

Book actions banner removed. Google removed the deprecation banner from the Book actions documentation, noting there's still a feature using the markup in Search. A reminder that these lists aren't strictly one-directional, and that the documentation itself is the authority over any static summary.

A note on the March 2026 core update

You'll find claims that Google's March 2026 core update "reduced rich result display for FAQ, Review, and HowTo on non-primary content pages," and that Review schema on editorial comparison posts was "demoted or manually actioned at scale."

Treat these carefully. Core updates are broad ranking changes, and attributing specific structured-data display effects to a particular core update is difficult to verify from outside Google. What is well-established and stated by Google: structured data is not a ranking factor, and marking up content that isn't genuinely present on the page, including review or FAQ markup bolted onto pages that aren't really about that, has always risked a manual action, independent of any core update. The defensible takeaway is the long-standing one: mark up what's actually on the page. We've flagged the specific "core update demoted Review schema" framing as unverified rather than repeating it as fact.

2025

November 12: Organization-level shipping and returns. Google expanded how shipping and return policies can be provided: at the organization level via structured data, or directly in Search Console settings, in addition to per-product markup. Search Console settings take precedence over on-page structured data where both exist. A genuine convenience for stores with one consistent policy.

November: Practice Problem deprecation announced. Google added a deprecation notice to the Practice Problem documentation, announcing the January 2026 tooling removal above. Authored by John Mueller, the post was, on the industry's read, easy to misinterpret as more sweeping than intended, it concerned one lightly-used feature, not structured data broadly.

July 31: Special Announcement deprecation. Google ended support for the COVID-era Special Announcement structured data, part of the broader retirement of pandemic-era features.

June 12: Seven types retired. The largest single retirement. Google removed rich results for Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, and Vehicle Listing. Announced by Search Product Manager Henry Hsu as a simplification effort, the features were underused or no longer added enough value, with an explicit statement that rankings weren't affected. Documentation for these types was removed by September 2025.

The Course nuance: Course Info was retired here; Course list was not, and still produces a rich result. Guides claiming "Course schema was deprecated" conflate the two.

Return policy requirement change. Google made returnPolicyCountry a required field in return policy markup, using the two-letter ISO country code. This is a genuine markup change, not just a display change, return policy markup implemented before it may be incomplete.

2024

November: Sitelinks Search Box removed. Google removed the Sitelinks Search Box feature, the internal search field that appeared inside some branded listings, citing low usage. The associated WebSite potentialAction/SearchAction markup remains valid but no longer produces the search field.

February: Product variants support. Google added support for product variants, letting stores model size, colour, and configuration variations with ProductGroup and hasVariant. An addition rather than a removal, and a genuinely useful one for catalogues, detail in the Product schema guide.

Vehicle listings and car dealership inventory. Google introduced structured data for car dealership inventory, with its own reporting and testing support. (Note the irony: Vehicle Listing rich results were then retired in June 2025, a reminder that additions aren't permanent.)

Earlier context (pre-2023)

The log above starts in 2023 because that's when the current wave of pruning began, but two earlier changes still matter for anyone auditing an older site.

Data-vocabulary.org fully sunset (2020-2021). Before schema.org became the standard, some sites used the data-vocabulary.org format, particularly for breadcrumbs. Google ended support for it entirely. Any markup still in that format produces no rich result today. Older sites that haven't been touched in years sometimes still carry it, so it's worth checking during an audit and migrating to schema.org JSON-LD.

The shift toward JSON-LD. Google has long stated a preference for JSON-LD over the older Microdata and RDFa formats embedded in HTML. Microdata still works, but JSON-LD is easier to maintain, easier to generate, and the format all current documentation examples use. If you're on inline Microdata, there's no emergency, but new implementation should use JSON-LD.

These aren't recent changes, but they're the two most common "why isn't my old markup working" causes on legacy sites, so they belong in any complete accounting.

2023

September: HowTo removed from desktop. HowTo rich results, already removed from mobile in August 2023, were removed from desktop. The feature has been absent from all surfaces since, and the documentation was cleared. HowTo remains valid markup, detail in Is HowTo Schema Still Worth Using?.

November 29: Organization markup expanded. Google expanded its support for Organization properties, using more of the schema.org Organization type to inform knowledge panels and other visual elements. Before this, Logo was effectively the only Organization rich result. An addition that made Organization markup substantially more useful, see the Organization schema guide.

November: Profile Page and Discussion Forum added. Google introduced Profile Page and Discussion Forum rich results, both of which remain supported.

Data-vocabulary.org sunset (earlier). Worth remembering: Google previously ended support for the legacy data-vocabulary.org format entirely. Any markup still in that format produces no rich result and should be migrated to schema.org JSON-LD.

Snapshot: what's supported right now

Because this log tracks changes, here's the current state it adds up to. As of the last update, Google's structured data gallery lists these supported features:

Product (with snippet, merchant listing, variants, loyalty program, return policy, shipping policy), Vacation rental, Local business, Organization, Profile page, Breadcrumb, Article, Video, Movie, Image metadata, Speakable, Subscription and paywalled content, Carousel, Discussion forum, Q&A, Education Q&A, Job posting, Employer aggregate rating, Recipe, Course list, Math solver, Dataset, Review snippet, and Software app.

That's 25 features, several of which, Product especially, break into multiple sub-features. The full breakdown with what each does is in our complete list of what Google supports in 2026; this snapshot is here so the log stands on its own.

If you're reading this well after the "last updated" date, treat the snapshot as historical and check Google's gallery for the current set, that's exactly the drift this log exists to track.

What to do after a change lands

A change to Google's structured data support is rarely an emergency, but each type calls for a specific, small response. A general playbook:

When a rich result is retired (like FAQ or HowTo): do nothing urgent. Leave the valid markup in place, confirm it still matches visible content, and stop expecting the SERP feature. Update any dashboards that pulled that feature's data from Search Console before the API support ends, or they'll silently return null.

When a markup requirement changes (like returnPolicyCountry becoming required): this one does need action. Audit existing implementations of that type and add the newly required field, or the markup may become incomplete. These are rarer than display changes but more consequential, because they affect a feature you still want.

When a feature is added (like product variants or organization-level policies): evaluate whether it applies to you, and implement it if the return justifies the effort. Additions are opportunities, not obligations, but the commerce-related ones in particular tend to be worth adopting.

When tooling changes (like the Rich Results Test dropping a type): update your QA process. A test that used to gate a feature may now return nothing for it, which is not the same as your markup being broken. Switch to generic schema.org validation for types that no longer have a Google-specific test.

When a new fetcher or crawler appears (like Google-Pinpoint): check that your access rules treat it as intended. Usually no action is needed, but it's worth knowing what's now hitting your site.

The meta-point: match your response to the kind of change. Display retirements are low-urgency, markup-requirement changes need prompt attention, and additions are optional upside. Conflating these, treating a display retirement as a crisis, or ignoring a genuine requirement change, is where teams waste effort or miss something that mattered.

The pattern across all of it

Step back from the individual entries and a consistent direction emerges.

Removals target narrow, vertical-specific features. Book Actions, Estimated Salary, Vehicle Listing, Practice Problems, Special Announcement, features serving a narrow use case, lightly used, retired to simplify the results page. The types describing fundamental entities, Product, Organization, LocalBusiness, Article, Recipe, Breadcrumb, have survived every round.

Additions cluster around commerce and entities. Product variants, merchant shipping and return policies, expanded Organization support. Google keeps investing in the structured data that describes products and businesses precisely.

The framing keeps shifting from display to comprehension. Google's own messaging increasingly presents structured data as helping systems understand content rather than as a route to a SERP decoration. That's consistent with a search page reclaiming space for AI-generated answers while still needing to understand the entities involved.

Rankings are never affected. Every deprecation notice reiterates this. Structured data isn't a ranking factor and these changes don't alter that.

The strategic read: build on the types that describe fundamental entities and still earn results, keep markup accurate to visible content, and don't panic when a niche feature is retired. For the current supported set, see our complete list of what Google supports in 2026.

How to stay current yourself

Since this space moves, three habits worth adopting rather than relying on any single article:

Bookmark Google's documentation update feed. It's the authoritative record and it's where changes appear first, often before any coverage. Everything in this log traces back to it.

Check the structured data gallery before major work. Before investing in a schema type, confirm it's still in the supported gallery. This catches retired features before you build on them.

Treat undated advice with suspicion. Given four rounds of change since 2023, any structured data guide without a recent date or a check against current documentation may be describing a feature that's gone. The fastest tell, as we've noted elsewhere: if a 2026 guide recommends FAQ or HowTo markup for its Google rich result, it wasn't verified.

For a broader look at how these changes fit into a full implementation, see our docs.

AI Schema Gen keeps its supported-type coverage current with Google's changes, generating and validating structured data across 530+ types. Start free or browse the schema types directory.