# Image sitemap

Category: [Crawling & Indexing](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/crawling-indexing/) › [Sitemaps & feeds](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/crawling-indexing/sitemaps-feeds/)

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.

## Example

```xml
<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.

## Sitemap types compared

| 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 | 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) | – |

Sources: [Google Search Central: Build and submit a sitemap (last updated 2025-12-10)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap); [Google Search Central: Manage your sitemaps with sitemap index files](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/large-sitemaps); [Google Search Central: Image sitemaps](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/image-sitemaps); [Google Search Central: Video sitemaps](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/video-sitemaps); [Google Search Central: Create a news sitemap](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/news-sitemap); [Google Search Central: Localized versions of your pages (sitemap method)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international/localized-versions); [sitemaps.org: Sitemaps XML format](https://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html); [Google Search Central Blog (2005): How is a Google Sitemap different from an HTML sitemap?](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2005/09/how-is-google-sitemap-different-from). Last checked: October 8, 2026

## Related terms

- [XML sitemap](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/xml-sitemap/index.md)
- [Sitemap index](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/sitemap-index/index.md)
- [HTML sitemap](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/html-sitemap/index.md)
- [Google Images](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/google-images/index.md)
- [Lazy loading](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/lazy-loading/index.md)

## Sources

- [Image sitemaps – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/image-sitemaps)
- [Spring cleaning: Sitemap extensions – Google Search Central Blog (2022)](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/05/spring-cleaning-sitemap-extensions)

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Last updated: October 8, 2026
URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/image-sitemap/