An image sitemap is an XML sitemap that gives Google additional image URLs for a page. It helps Google find images it might otherwise miss, such as images loaded with JavaScript.
How is an image sitemap built?
Each url entry holds one or more image:image elements, and each of them contains an image:loc with the address of the image. One url entry can list up to 1,000 images. You can use a separate file or add the image data to your regular sitemap. Both are valid.
Images may be hosted on another domain, for example a CDN, if both domains are verified in Search Console and robots.txt allows crawling.
Google deprecated the tags image:caption, image:geo_location, image:title and image:license (announced in May 2022). Only the two elements above are needed.
This entry describes the Google version of the image sitemap.
| Type | Purpose | Limits | Required elements |
|---|---|---|---|
| XML sitemap | a file with information about the pages, videos and other files on a site and the relationships between them | at most 50,000 URLs or 50 MB (uncompressed) per file; UTF-8, absolute URLs | urlset, and per URL a url with loc |
| Sitemap index | groups several sitemaps so they can be submitted together | at most 50,000 sitemaps and 50 MB per index; up to 500 index files per site in Search Console | sitemapindex, and per sitemap a sitemap with loc |
| Image sitemap (this term) | tells Google about images it might not otherwise find, such as images loaded with JavaScript | up to 1,000 image:image per url; otherwise as for XML sitemaps | image:image with image:loc |
| Video sitemap | adds information about videos hosted on the pages | as for XML sitemaps; description at most 2,048 characters | video:video with video:thumbnail_loc, video:title, video:description and either video:content_loc or video:player_loc |
| News sitemap | tells Google about news articles with extra details | up to 1,000 news:news per file; only articles from the last two days | news:news with news:publication (news:name, news:language), news:publication_date, news:title |
| Sitemap with hreflang | lists the language and regional versions of a page | as for XML sitemaps | per url a loc and one xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="…" for every version, including the page itself |
| HTML sitemap | a page of links for visitors to the site | – (not part of the sitemap protocol; Google says it cannot be submitted as a sitemap. Source: Google Search Central Blog, 2005) | – |
Image, video, news and hreflang data are extensions of the XML format; every file is limited to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB. Of the optional elements, Google uses lastmod if it is consistently and verifiably accurate and ignores priority and changefreq. The HTML sitemap details come from a 2005 Google blog post; Google's current sitemap documentation does not mention HTML sitemaps. Sources: Google Search Central: Build and submit a sitemap (last updated 2025-12-10); Google Search Central: Manage your sitemaps with sitemap index files; Google Search Central: Image sitemaps; Google Search Central: Video sitemaps; Google Search Central: Create a news sitemap; Google Search Central: Localized versions of your pages (sitemap method); sitemaps.org: Sitemaps XML format; Google Search Central Blog (2005): How is a Google Sitemap different from an HTML sitemap?. Last checked: .
Example
<url>
<loc>https://www.example.com/product</loc>
<image:image>
<image:loc>https://www.example.com/images/product.jpg</image:loc>
</image:image>
</url>
The image namespace http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1 must be declared in the urlset element.
Sources
- Image sitemaps – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Spring cleaning: Sitemap extensions – Google Search Central Blog (2022)developers.google.com
Last updated: