Video sitemap

Long definition

The web crawler doesn't always find videos on its own — particularly when the player is mounted by JavaScript, loaded after a user interaction, or hosted on a separate CDN domain. A video sitemap removes the discovery problem by handing Google a structured list of every page that contains video and the metadata for each video.

Format. Either a dedicated video-sitemap.xml or <video:video> extensions inside a regular sitemap, declared with the namespace xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1". Each entry pairs a <loc> (the page URL) with one or more <video:video> blocks describing the videos on that page.

Required tags, per Google's video sitemap reference:

• <video:thumbnail_loc> — image at least 60×30 px, ideally 1200×630 for Discover eligibility.
• <video:title> — the video's title, ≤100 chars.
• <video:description> — ≤2048 chars, plain text.
• One of <video:content_loc> (direct file URL, .mp4/.webm) or <video:player_loc> (the iframe embed URL).

Optional but useful:

• <video:duration> in seconds (1-28800).
• <video:expiration_date> in ISO 8601 — required for time-limited content like rented films or live-event replays.
• <video:rating> (0.0-5.0), <video:view_count>.
• <video:publication_date> — when the video was first published; distinct from page publication date.
• <video:family_friendly>yes|no — defaults to yes.
• <video:restriction relationship="allow|deny"> — country code list (ISO 3166).
• <video:platform relationship="allow|deny"> — web mobile tv combinations.
• <video:tag> — up to 32 per video, one tag per element.
• <video:requires_subscription>yes|no — flag paywalled video.
• <video:live>yes|no — for live streams in combination with the Indexing API.

File limits. A single sitemap file holds 50,000 URL entries and 50MB uncompressed; bigger catalogs split across multiple sitemaps under a sitemap index. Each <loc> can carry multiple <video:video> blocks if a single page hosts more than one video — common on tutorial pages with chapter videos or product pages with multiple angle clips.

Submission. Reference the sitemap from robots.txt (Sitemap: https://example.com/video-sitemap.xml) and submit it in Search Console. Coverage shows up in the Sitemaps report; per-page video status appears in the Video page report under Indexing.

The reason this is often the easiest video-discovery win: it requires no code changes to the player, no schema migration, and no CMS rework. A nightly script that walks the database and emits XML is enough.

Common misconceptions

• "Video sitemap replaces schema." It complements VideoObject schema. The sitemap aids discovery; schema provides on-page metadata Google reads at render time. Use both.
• "Listing the same video on multiple pages helps." Don't. Each video has one canonical page; duplicating it across URLs in the sitemap dilutes signals and can trigger duplicate-content handling in the video index.
• "You need separate sitemaps for video and regular pages." Not required. The <video:video> extension goes inside any sitemap. Many sites prefer separation for monitoring purposes, but it's a workflow choice, not a Google requirement.
• "Sitemap submission is one-time." Re-submit when the sitemap URL changes. For URL stability with frequent content updates, point Search Console at a stable sitemap URL and update its contents server-side.