Video sitemap
A video sitemap is a special XML file that tells Google about video content on a site: URL, title, description, thumbnail, and duration. It speeds up video indexing and enables rich results.
A video sitemap is an XML file in sitemap extension format containing structured data about videos on a site: page URL, video metadata, thumbnail, duration, and upload date. It is submitted to Google Search Console.
What is a video sitemap
A video sitemap is a special XML sitemap file that tells Google about video content on a site. Unlike a standard sitemap.xml, a video sitemap contains extended metadata about each video: title, description, thumbnail URL, duration, and upload date.
A video sitemap helps Googlebot find and index videos it might miss during regular crawling — especially videos embedded via JavaScript or on pages with limited text navigation.
Video sitemap structure
A video sitemap extends the standard sitemap.xml with tags from the video: namespace. Required tags: video:thumbnail_loc, video:title, video:description. Recommended: video:content_loc or video:player_loc, video:duration, video:publication_date.
- video:thumbnail_loc
- URL of the video thumbnail image. Required tag. Minimum 160×90 px, maximum 1920×1080 px.
- video:title
- Video title. Required. Maximum 100 characters.
- video:description
- Text description of the video. Required. Maximum 2,048 characters.
- video:content_loc
- URL of the video file itself. Needed for videos hosted on your own server. For YouTube, video:player_loc is sufficient.
- video:player_loc
- URL of the embedded video player (iframe src). An alternative to content_loc.
- video:duration
- Duration in seconds (integer from 1 to 28800).
- video:publication_date
- Publication date in W3C datetime format (e.g., 2026-05-26T10:00:00+03:00).
When a video sitemap is needed
- The site has videos hosted on its own server (not YouTube/Vimeo)
- Videos are embedded via JavaScript — Googlebot may not see them during crawling
- You need to speed up indexation of a large volume of video content
- You want video carousels and rich results in Google
- Videos are on pages with limited navigation that Googlebot may not reach
How to create a video sitemap
- Identify all pages with videos on your site
- Create an XML file following the sitemap schema with the video namespace extension
- For each page, add a <url> block with a nested <video:video>
- Fill in required tags: thumbnail_loc, title, description
- Add recommended tags: content_loc, duration, publication_date
- Save the file as video-sitemap.xml in the site's root
How to submit a video sitemap to Google
- Upload video-sitemap.xml to the site server
- Add a reference in the main sitemap.xml: <sitemap><loc>https://site.com/video-sitemap.xml</loc></sitemap>
- Open Google Search Console → 'Sitemaps' → enter the URL and click 'Submit'
- Check processing status — Google will show the number of discovered videos
- Use the URL Inspection tool to diagnose specific pages with videos
Common questions
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