Google’s relationship with structured data has always been pragmatic: schema markup is valuable when it meaningfully improves the Search experience. In 2025, that pragmatism became explicit when Google confirmed it would phase out several “lesser-used” rich result types, reducing visual enhancements tied to specific markups over “weeks and months,” while emphasizing that rankings would not be affected.
Not long after, Google Search Console followed suit by retiring reporting and tooling support for most of those same niche features. If your SEO workflows rely on Search appearance filters, Rich Results Test outputs, or Search Console exports, this change matters, not because it changes where you rank, but because it changes what you can measure, validate, and report.
1) What “retiring niche schema types” actually means
When people hear “schema is being retired,” it’s easy to assume the underlying Schema.org vocabulary is being removed or that the markup becomes “invalid.” That’s not what’s happening. Google is retiring support for certain rich result experiences, meaning the special visual treatment in Search results is going away for those markup types.
Google framed the June 12, 2025 change as a simplification effort: it will phase out “lesser-used” structured data (rich result) types, and the visible enhancements will be removed gradually over “weeks and months.” Importantly, Google stated the change “doesn’t affect rankings,” positioning it as a presentation and feature-support shift rather than a ranking system update.
In practice, you can still publish structured data, and validators may still consider it syntactically correct. But if Google no longer supports a rich result type, you should not expect eligibility for that rich result, nor the Search Console-specific reporting surfaces that used to help you monitor it.
2) The June 12, 2025 announcement: why Google phased these out
On June 12, 2025, Google announced it would phase out a set of structured data types it described as “lesser-used.” The stated intent was to simplify Search results and focus on experiences that are broadly useful and widely adopted.
Google’s rationale was direct and measurable. The official explanation was that these types were “not commonly used” and were “no longer providing significant additional value for users.” As Google put it: “We’re phasing out these specific structured data types because our analysis shows that they’re not commonly used in Search, and… no longer providing significant additional value for users.”
Google also highlighted an important reassurance for site owners: this shift does not impact rankings. So while you may lose a visual enhancement, the change is not framed as a quality downgrade or penalty, rather, it’s a removal of a feature that Google no longer wants to maintain in the results.
3) The structured data types affected (and the Book Actions exception)
Google provided a specific list of structured data types it said would no longer be supported for Search rich results. That list included: Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, and Vehicle Listing.
From an operations perspective, it helps to separate two things: (1) the June list of rich result types being phased out in Search, and (2) the later Search Console removals for reporting and testing. Those two sets overlap heavily, but they are not identical.
In September 2025 coverage, industry reporting noted that “Book Actions” was the exception when Google later removed Search Console support. In other words, Google dropped six of the seven types from Search Console’s rich result reporting surfaces, but Book Actions was not included in that Search Console reporting removal list, even though it was named in the June rich result phase-out announcement.
4) September 2025: Google Search Console retires reporting and testing
On September 8, 9, 2025, Google announced that Google Search Console would remove support for six niche/deprecated structured data types in its reporting and tools. The affected types were: Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, and Vehicle Listing.
Google’s official confirmation tied the tooling removal directly to the product change in Search itself: “We are removing support in Search Console for the following structured data types, as these types have been phased out from Search results…” This aligns with third-party summaries (including Search Engine Roundtable) emphasizing that the removal happened because the corresponding rich result features “are no longer shown in Google Search results.”
Starting September 9, 2025, the retirement applied across multiple Search Console surfaces: rich result reporting, the Rich Results Test, and Search appearance filters. Search Engine Journal’s recap similarly confirmed the same six types and the same set of impacted tools, making it clear the change wasn’t limited to a single report.
5) What changes inside GSC: reports, Rich Results Test, and appearance filters
The most visible impact for many teams is the disappearance of dedicated rich result reporting for these types. If you previously monitored errors, warnings, and valid items for (for example) Claim Review or Vehicle Listing, those report views will no longer be available once support is removed.
Validation workflows change too. Google indicated the retirement includes removal from the Rich Results Test for the affected types. That means you lose an official, Google-provided way to quickly confirm whether your markup qualifies for those particular rich result features, because the features themselves are no longer supported.
Finally, Search appearance filters are affected. If you used appearance filters to segment performance reporting (clicks, impressions, CTR) by these rich result types, those segments will no longer exist in the interface. Practically, that pushes teams toward page/query/device segmentation, or toward maintaining historical comparisons outside of Search Console.
6) API and bulk export timelines: what breaks and when
Google provided a transition window for programmatic users. While UI and tool support begins disappearing from September 9, 2025, Google said: “The Search Console API will continue to support these types through December 2025.” That temporary continuation is crucial for teams that depend on automated pipelines, scheduled reports, or warehouse ingestion.
However, bulk data export introduces a sharper edge. Google stated that “deprecated search appearance fields will be reported as `NULL` by October 1, 2025.” If your dashboards or SQL queries assume these fields are populated (or use them in joins, filters, or calculated metrics), you can see broken charts, empty segments, or incorrect aggregations unless you explicitly handle NULL values.
The safest response is to treat September, December 2025 as a controlled migration period: update schemas and documentation for your internal datasets, add NULL-safe logic, and annotate reporting to explain why a previously available rich result segment disappears. Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Journal both highlighted these API and bulk export timelines, reinforcing that measurement changes arrive in stages.
7) A familiar pattern: the HowTo precedent from 2023
This is not the first time Google has removed a rich result experience and then retired Search Console support shortly after. In August and September 2023, Google previously removed Search Console “HowTo” rich result support after deprecating the result type.
At that time, Google said HowTo rich results stopped showing on desktop (September 13, 2023), and Search Console would drop HowTo appearance/reporting and Rich Results Test support shortly after, with API support removed later. The sequence, Search feature reduced or removed, then tooling support retired, then API fields eventually deprecated, looks very similar to what’s happening with the 2025 niche schema types.
The lesson for site owners is that Search Console is a reflection of what Search actually supports. If a rich result is phased out in the results, the diagnostic and reporting surfaces that exist solely for that feature are likely to be phased out too, often on a lagging timeline to help teams adapt.
8) What to do now: practical steps for SEOs and developers
First, audit where these six retired types appear in your organization: codebases, CMS templates, tag management rules, QA checklists, and SEO documentation. Even if you keep the markup for internal reasons, you should set expectations that it will not yield the retired Google Search rich result enhancements.
Second, adjust measurement. If your reporting relied on Search appearance filters for Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, or Vehicle Listing, plan replacements now, such as landing page groups, query classifiers, or annotation-based comparisons. Also update your pipelines to accommodate the API continuation through December 2025 and the October 1, 2025 bulk export change to NULL values.
Third, communicate clearly across stakeholders. Product teams may interpret “schema retired” as an SEO emergency, while leadership may be surprised by sudden reporting gaps. The accurate message is: rankings are not affected, but the rich result visuals and the Search Console tooling around them are being retired because Google deemed them “not commonly used” and “no longer providing significant additional value for users.”
Google Search Console retiring niche schema types is best understood as a measurement and presentation change, not a ranking shock. The Search feature deprecations announced on June 12, 2025 set the direction, and the Search Console retirements beginning September 9, 2025 bring the tools in line with what Search actually shows.
The operational risk is mostly in reporting: lost appearance filters, removed Rich Results Test coverage, API fields that persist only through December 2025, and bulk export fields that become NULL by October 1, 2025. Teams that treat this as a controlled migration, auditing markup usage, hardening data pipelines, and updating stakeholder expectations, will avoid surprises while keeping structured data work focused on the rich results Google continues to support.
