If your site uses course, salary, vehicle, fact-check or book markup, you may have read that Google is dropping some rich results and wondered if your pages are about to lose traffic. Here is the short answer on the Google structured data phase out: on 12 June 2025, Google said it will stop showing seven lesser-used structured data features in Search results over the coming weeks and months. Google also said the change will not affect how pages rank.
So nothing breaks overnight, and nobody gets a penalty. But some results will look plainer, and if one of those features brought you clicks, you need a plan. In this article I explain what is going away, who it affects, whether to remove the markup, and what I would check on your site this week.
What Google Announced on 12 June 2025
Google published a post on the Search Central blog called Simplifying the search results page. It says Google is phasing out support for seven structured data types in Google Search results. Structured data is code you add to a page to label its content, such as a price, a date or a course provider, so Google can show extra details next to your result.
Google gave three main reasons:
- Its analysis shows these types are not commonly used in Search.
- The displays no longer add much extra value for users.
- Removing them helps keep the results page cleaner and lets Google focus on features that are more useful.
Google did not give a fixed end date for each feature. It said they will be phased out over the coming weeks and months, so some may disappear sooner than others.
The Seven Features Being Phased Out
These are the seven features Google named, with what each one added to a result and the kinds of sites that mostly used it.
| Feature | What it showed in Search | Who mostly used it |
|---|---|---|
| Book Actions | Buttons to buy, borrow or read a book from the book result | Publishers, bookstores, libraries |
| Course Info | Extra course details such as provider, cost and format | Online course sites, colleges, training providers |
| Claim Review | Fact-check snippets showing a claim and its rating | Fact-checking organisations, news publishers |
| Estimated Salary | Salary ranges for a job title or occupation | Job boards, salary data sites |
| Learning Video | Educational details on school and learning videos | Education publishers, tutoring sites |
| Special Announcement | Urgent notices such as closures or changed hours | Government bodies, schools, health providers |
| Vehicle Listing | Car inventory details such as price and condition | Car dealers, vehicle marketplaces |
A few notes on these, in plain words:
- Special Announcement started in 2020 for COVID-19 updates and was always marked as a beta feature. It is not a big surprise to see it go.
- Learning Video used extra educational properties on top of normal
VideoObjectmarkup. Google did not list regular video features, so standard video rich results are not part of this change. - Book Actions was often set up through a data feed rather than markup on each page, so many sites that “have” it may not see it in their page code.
What Google Says Is Not Changing
The post is short, but it makes three points clear:
- Rankings are not affected. Google says this update won’t affect how pages are ranked. Your pages keep their positions; they just lose the extra visual details for these seven types.
- Use outside Google Search is not affected. Google says the use of these structured data types outside Google Search (and dependent features) is not affected.
- Other structured data is still supported. Google says it will keep actively supporting a range of structured data types. Product, review, article, recipe, video, event, local business and many others are not on this list.
Does This Hurt Your SEO?
For rankings, no. Structured data was never a direct ranking factor, and Google says plainly that this change will not move pages up or down. If your positions shift in the next few weeks, look for another cause first.
For clicks, it might, a little. A rich result takes up more space and gives people more reasons to click. When a salary range or a fact-check rating disappears, your listing becomes a normal blue link with a title and a description. Some of those searchers may click less, or they may click more because they now have to visit the page to get the answer.
In my experience, the impact depends on how much of your traffic came from the rich display itself. A job board that relied on salary snippets for many job-title searches will notice more than a blog that had course markup on two pages.
Who Should Pay the Most Attention
- Job and salary sites that used Estimated Salary markup across many occupation pages.
- Car dealers and marketplaces that built Vehicle Listing markup into their inventory pages.
- Course platforms and colleges with Course Info markup on many course pages.
- Fact-checkers and news sites that used ClaimReview on fact-check articles.
- Publishers and libraries that set up Book Actions.
If you are a local business, a typical blog or a standard ecommerce store, this change most likely does not touch you at all.
Should You Remove the Phased-Out Markup?
This is the question I expect most people to ask, and Google’s post does not answer it directly. It does not tell site owners to remove anything. It only says Search will stop using these types for the visual features.
My view is simple: there is no rush to remove it. Unused structured data does not cause a penalty, and it does not slow your site in any way you would notice. Google just ignores markup it no longer uses for a feature.
Reasons to Keep It
- Other platforms may still read it. Schema.org markup is a shared vocabulary. Google says use outside Google Search is not affected, so other search engines, apps and tools can still use it.
- It still describes your page. Clear labels for things like a course provider or a vehicle’s price can still help machines understand your content, even if Google no longer shows a special display for it.
- Fact-check tools. ClaimReview is the standard format behind many fact-checking tools, including Google’s own Fact Check Tools. Fact-checkers should not strip it out based on this announcement alone.
- Removing it costs time. Developer hours spent deleting harmless code are hours not spent on something that helps.
Reasons You Might Clean It Up Later
- Maintenance. If the markup is custom code that often breaks or needs updates, keeping it alive has a real cost.
- Template changes. If you are rebuilding a template anyway, it is a good time to decide which markup is still worth keeping.
- Plugin clutter. Some SEO plugins add markup types you never chose. A clean, short set of markup is easier to test and fix.
What I would not do is panic-delete markup across a large site this week. Wait until you see how Google handles the phase-out, then make a calm decision.
How to Check If Your Site Is Affected
This takes less time than you might think. Here is the process I follow when a change like this comes out.
- Check the Enhancements section in Search Console. Open your property and look at the rich result reports in the left menu. If you see a report for one of the seven types, Google has found that markup on your site.
- Check the Performance report by search appearance. In the Performance report, click the Search appearance tab. If one of these features is listed, note its clicks and impressions for the last three to six months. This is your baseline.
- Test a few key pages. Run your most important pages through the Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator to see exactly which types they carry. My guide to testing structured data explains the difference between the two tools.
- Find where the markup comes from. Is it your theme, a plugin, a custom template or a data feed? Write it down, because you will need it if you decide to change anything later.
- Add an annotation. Mark 12 June 2025 in your reporting tool so that any change in clicks later can be traced back to this. If you use GA4, my guide to GA4 annotations shows how.
- Watch clicks, not just rankings. Over the next weeks, compare clicks and click-through rate on the affected pages with your baseline.
When I do this for a site, the first step usually answers the question in a few seconds. Most sites will have none of these reports.
What to Look for in Your Data
If a feature disappears, the most likely pattern is steady rankings, steady impressions and lower clicks on the affected pages. That pattern means the display went away, not that Google demoted you.
If rankings fall at the same time, treat it as a separate issue. Check for technical problems, content changes or a wider ranking update before blaming this change.
What to Do If You Relied on One of These Features
Losing a rich result does not mean losing the searcher. It means your title and description now have to do all the work.
Rewrite Titles and Descriptions for the Affected Pages
Think about what the rich result used to show, and put the most useful part into plain text. For example:
- A salary page could use a title like “Nurse Salary in Texas: Average Pay and Range by Experience”.
- A car listing could put the year, model and price in the title.
- A course page could mention the format and length in the description, such as “6-week online course, self-paced”.
Keep it honest. The page must deliver what the title and description promise, or people will click back quickly.
Make the Page Answer the Question Fast
When a rich result shows the answer in Search, many people never visit the page. Now they have to. Put the key facts near the top: the salary range, the price, the course dates, the fact-check rating. Do not make visitors scroll past long intros to find what they came for.
Lean on the Markup That Still Works
Many supported types may still fit your pages:
- Car dealers can make sure the dealership’s local business details are complete and correct, and put key vehicle facts in plain text on each listing page.
- Course sites can keep strong organisation details and, for course videos, use standard video markup. My video SEO guide covers the required and recommended properties.
- Publishers and fact-checkers can make sure their article markup is clean. My guide on article structured data explains which properties Google recommends.
Only add markup that matches what is visible on the page. Adding the wrong type just to chase a display can break Google’s structured data guidelines.
Why Google Keeps Trimming Rich Results
This is not the first time Google has cut back on rich results. In August 2023, Google limited FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health sites, and it then removed HowTo rich results from Search altogether.
The pattern is clear. Google adds rich results to test new ideas, keeps the ones people use, and removes the ones that clutter the page. Google’s own post says it will keep looking for ways to simplify the results page, so I would expect more changes like this over time.
For that reason, I tell people not to build a whole traffic strategy around one display feature. Rich results are a bonus on top of good pages, not a replacement for them. If the page is useful and the title is clear, losing a snippet hurts much less.
What This Means for Your Structured Data Plan
- Focus on core types. Organisation, article, product, review, video, breadcrumb and local business markup cover what most sites need.
- Review your markup once or twice a year. Check that every type you use is still supported and still matches the page.
- Do not add markup just because a plugin offers it. More types do not mean better results.
- Watch the Search Central blog. Google usually announces these changes there first, and the documentation follows.
Final Thoughts on the Google Structured Data Phase Out
The Google structured data phase out affects seven niche features: Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement and Vehicle Listing. Rankings stay the same, and the markup does no harm if you leave it in place. The only real risk is fewer clicks on pages that leaned on these displays.
Your next step is quick: open Search Console, check your Enhancements reports and the Search appearance tab, and note your current clicks for any affected feature. If you want to tidy up your markup while you are there, test your key pages one by one and keep only the types that match what visitors see.
