FAQ Schema Penalty?

mcfarlanek

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Hello all,

I've been confused for a while about why my FAQ snippets no longer show up in the SERPs. You know the ones that look like PAA but are located under your site in the SERPS.

Anyways, I added FAQ schema to many of my pages a while back and over the past 12 months, they have all but disappeared.

I've run my pages through the google rich results test and it indicates there aren't any errors. Further, according to GSC, I have 76 pages with a valid FAQ schema on my site.

Is there such thing as a penalty for overusing this schema or something else?

I do understand that just because you have FAQ schema google may not use it. However, It just seems odd that not one article would now show up.

I'd love to hear some input on this and any suggestions on how to get them back (if possible). I'm also curious if this could be why it seems my site has lost traffic this year, which I asked about here.

I've attached a screenshot of my GSC of FAQ Search results so you can see the drop-off.

b0mBZld.png
 
If you got a manual action they'd have sent you a message in Search Console. Here's a list of structured data issues you can consider to see if you're accidentally doing something "manipulative".

Someone else mentioned this same kind of thing in the newbie thread, so it must not be uncommon. I'm guessing it's algorithmic.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't pay that close attention when I'm searching, but don't the FAQ snippets only show up for the top-most ranking keywords for the most part? I don't recall ever seeing them appear below the top 5, maybe even top 3. If you lost most of your top 3 rankings, that could be a cause.

I had a friend the other day asking why Google wasn't showing their "lastModified" date instead of their published date even though we set it all up correctly. Sometimes, as you mentioned already, Google simply chooses not to show them for a site for whatever reason. Sometimes that's low trust, or something algorithmic like "providing a low CTR and engagement, thus it's eating up SERP real estate we can use for other things".

It may be nothing wrong with your markup, your answers, or anything. It might simply be that the queries that your FAQ's would appear for aren't needed based on user engagement.

Google also straight up tests their inclusion and exclusion, let alone split testing sites with them. So you can lose snippets all at once simply because Google decided to test not showing them in this specific niche and intent. I don't really know a concrete answer, but I thought I'd offer some of this food for thought.
 
@Ryuzaki To my understanding, schema should only be on a page if that same info can be found on a page. Which leaves me wondering whether or not all of these pages have a header saying FAQ or if he's just putting FAQ schema on an article where a bunch of the headers are questions.

Or in other words, if he's just putting FAQ schema on a page that says nothing about FAQ couldn't that be seen as manipulative? To play it safe, I'd only have FAQ schema on my dedicated FAQ page or on articles that have FAQ at the bottom of it.

Is this "safe" approach the right way to go about it?
 
MWWWconquest said:
Or in other words, if he's just putting FAQ schema on a page that says nothing about FAQ couldn't that be seen as manipulative? To play it safe, I'd only have FAQ schema on my dedicated FAQ page or on articles that have FAQ at the bottom of it.

Is this "safe" approach the right way to go about it?
Click to expand...
I agree with your assessment entirely. Anything else is manipulation. It's clearly designed to be used the way you describe.

Another one people were getting whacked for was the Q&A schema. It's meant for stuff like Quora where someone asks a question and people submit answers. People were using it on regular question articles where the author poses a question and then answers it. Clear misuse.
 
MWWWconquest said:
@Ryuzaki To my understanding, schema should only be on a page if that same info can be found on a page. Which leaves me wondering whether or not all of these pages have a header saying FAQ or if he's just putting FAQ schema on an article where a bunch of the headers are questions.

Or in other words, if he's just putting FAQ schema on a page that says nothing about FAQ couldn't that be seen as manipulative? To play it safe, I'd only have FAQ schema on my dedicated FAQ page or on articles that have FAQ at the bottom of it.

Is this "safe" approach the right way to go about it?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the comments.

The info that is contained in the schema is found on the page. Albeit sometimes as part of the main body content while it occurs under an FAQ section at the bottom.

There isn't any manual penalty that I can see in GSC so maybe it's an algorithmic penalty.

I'm thinking maybe I've misused it. As @Ryuzaki noted I have used it in instances where my article is a question that I answer, and include an FAQ at the bottom. Maybe not the intent google wants in the end.

I'm wondering would there be a benefit in going back through the articles to remove the schema, as it doesn't seem to be helping them rank anyways. Also if there is an algorithm penalty on the pages maybe this is holding back some content.

thoughts?
 
mcfarlanek said:
thoughts?
Click to expand...
Not sure if you're asking me, but if keeping it there hasn't helped then I'm confident removing it won't do any harm. We have plenty of FAQ's at the bottom of our articles (with no schema) that get snippets and other features. Just not the FAQ rich snippets you're speaking of

The FAQPage and QAPage both look as if they're meant for dedicated FAQ pages or product support per googles examples which are vague. Of course, they say any page that has several questions and answers can use it too but it could've been manipulated. So I'd suggest using the schema that most accurately depicts that page (WebPage, Article, etc).

Clearly there's been a change from the differences you've seen so you may have gotten a whammy for using FAQ on regular ole articles with a FAQ at the bottom. This is all suspicion though so don't take my word 100%

Ps, I read you rother post too and since you've been losing rankings, I'd personally try clusters of 3 on the keyword/phrase (with different angles) and interlinks to try to get those spots back.
 
So I've been doing some digging and came across this article:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-nono-snippet-wide-ban-32932.html

So I check Ahref's to see what snippets I rank for (yes I understand the FAQ schema I discussed in the above thread is different, however, it's all rich content) guess what...

I currently have "0" that's right my entire site doesn't rank for any snippets at all!

I don't know when this occurred, but I did know that I previously had many PAA, Site Links & Featured snippet spots.

So, with the loss of all snippets as well as my FAQ, Video & How To schema not showing up in SERPS anymore - I'm pretty sure I'm being penalized for something.

My questions:
  1. Does anyone have any idea of what the penalty might be for or think it's something different?
  2. The only schema I've added manually was FAQ, Video, Review & How To. Should I remove them?
  3. Article, Owner, Sitelinks, Blog post schema is automatically added by Yoast - I don't think this is an issue as many sites use it, but would love thoughts.
Thanks for all your support and help
 
I added FAQ schema to about 15 of my high-ranking pages back in November.

They've ALL steadily declined since adding them schema.

I'm going to remove the schema now and see if I see any positive movement.
 
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