FAQ pages: when they help and how to write them well

An FAQ page helps when it collects what people actually ask, with short and candid answers. It gets in the way when it makes up questions or repeats what the rest of the site already explains. And it no longer works as a search trick. According to the Google Search Central changelog, FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search on May 7, 2026.

When it’s worth having one

Susan Farrell’s article at Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) offers a simple test. If your team spends a lot of time on email and phone support, or if people have questions before they buy, answering those questions on the site tends to pay off.

The same piece pushes back on the idea that site search is enough. The company’s vocabulary and the visitor’s often don’t match, and few people know how to write a good query. Habit helps too: lots of people already look for the FAQ when they want a quick answer.

When it gets in the way

The GOV.UK style guide, which sets the rules for the UK government’s website, bans the format. The reasoning fits in one line: if you write from what the reader needs, you won’t need an FAQ.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the UK government’s digital team. In a 2013 post on the GDS blog, Sarah Richards spells out why:

a question takes longer to read than a plain heading, and a list of them says nothing at a glance;
a heading phrased as a question starts with “how”, “when” or “why”, not with the word the reader is looking for;
the page usually repeats content that already exists, and both versions end up competing for the same spot in search.

Where the sources disagree

The format. NN/g defends the FAQ precisely because people know it, and says it’s worth using what already works. GOV.UK thinks well-organized content makes the page unnecessary.
Search. NN/g sees questions written in the audience’s words as a chance to match what people type into a search engine. The GDS post sees a duplicate page as competition for the site itself.

Both agree that a frequent question points to content the site needs. They disagree about where that content should live. As I read it, the size of the site matters. GDS writes for the whole of the UK and organizes everything by need. On a small site with a single offer, a list of questions is often the shortest way to answer someone who’s deciding.

Where the questions come from

The oldest source in this piece is NN/g’s list of design mistakes from 2002. Number seven is an FAQ full of questions the company wishes someone would ask. According to the article, that undermines trust in the site.

The 2014 article points to where the real questions are:

in support email and phone calls;
with the sales team, who know by heart what customers ask before they buy;
in forums and social media, where people ask when the site doesn’t answer.

The same article adds one more thing to watch. A question that keeps coming in may signal a usability problem somewhere else in the product. In that case, the answer on the page helps today, and the fix needs to go to whoever owns that part.

How to write questions and answers

Questions in the asker’s words. NN/g reminds us that people search for the problem they have, not for the solution the company sells.
Answers that lead with what matters. Yes, no, a deadline or a price goes in the first sentence, and the detail comes after. It’s the same logic GDS applies to headings: the key term goes first.
A candid tone. The same article shows that readers are judging the company. An answer that sounds like marketing, or hides a known limit, counts against you.
Groups by topic. The 2014 article asks for questions grouped by subject. That way people quickly rule out what isn’t about them and read only the part that matters.
A living page. NN/g’s teardown of an FAQ page praises the site that changes its questions as the situation changes.

How to lay it out

For a short or medium page, the 2014 article says the classic design still works best. First the list of questions, then each question with its answer. It sets the limit at under ten pages. Beyond that, the list should lead to a separate page for each answer.

NN/g’s teardown lists what makes the page easy to scan:

links in the list that jump straight to each answer;
questions in bold or as headings, set apart from the answers;
links with enough contrast to be seen without hovering;
a way back to the top at the end of the page.

An accordion, the block that opens and closes when you click its heading, is another option. NN/g’s article on accordions on desktop names FAQ pages as a good fit, because each question stands on its own. The same source advises against accordions when people need to read almost every answer. For keyboard and screen reader users, the heading has to work as a button and announce whether it’s open or closed.

What changed in Google Search

FAQ markup used to produce what Google calls a rich result: a visual highlight in the list of results. Google’s changelog shows that in September 2023 the feature was limited to well-known, authoritative government and health sites. In May 2026 it stopped appearing for any site, and the documentation was removed in June.

The FAQPage type still exists in the schema.org vocabulary, which describes structured data. It just doesn’t earn any highlight in Google Search anymore. What’s left is the reason that always mattered: answering the person who’s reading. To understand the question people bring to a search engine, see the piece on search intent.

How it shows up in my projects

On the Tamires Brito site, which I built end to end, I wrote the copy for every block. One of them gathers the questions brands ask before closing, next to the promise, what the agency delivers and who runs the campaign. It’s what NN/g calls decision support: the reader is judging the agency before getting in touch.

Vexor, which puts AI assistants on WhatsApp, is another case: the site shows the offer, the price and the questions answered right on the page. I also published 22 texts answering the questions the business gets asked, written from demand research. On both sites, the questions sit on the same page as the offer, not on a separate page.

The common mistake

The common mistake is treating the FAQ as a dumping ground for whatever the rest of the site didn’t explain. Each new question becomes an answer at the bottom of the list, and the original problem stays put. Before adding a question, check whether the answer fits on the page where the doubt comes up. If it doesn’t, then it goes on the list, written in the words of whoever asked.