A video sitemap is an XML sitemap with extra details about videos embedded on pages of a site. Google learns where a video is, what it is called and what it looks like.
What goes into a video sitemap?
Each page with a video gets a video:video block. Required are a thumbnail (video:thumbnail_loc), a title and a description. You also need either the address of the video file (video:content_loc) or of the player (video:player_loc). Google recommends content_loc where possible, and player_loc fits videos embedded from a platform such as YouTube or Vimeo.
Optional fields include the duration (1 to 28,800 seconds) and up to 32 tags per video. A description can have at most 2,048 characters. Googlebot must be able to reach every URL, without login and without a robots.txt block.
The usual sitemap limits of 50,000 URLs and 50 MB apply per file. Larger sets are split and combined in a sitemap index. Google also accepts mRSS feeds as an alternative.
| 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 (this term) | 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://example.com/videos/change-a-chain/</loc>
<video:video>
<video:thumbnail_loc>https://example.com/img/chain.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
<video:title>How to change a bike chain</video:title>
<video:description>Open the chain, replace it and close it again.</video:description>
<video:content_loc>https://example.com/media/chain.mp4</video:content_loc>
<video:duration>312</video:duration>
</video:video>
</url>
Sources
- Video sitemaps – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Build and submit a sitemap – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
Last updated: