GlossarySEO
What is a video sitemap?
Also called: video sitemap XML, video:video, mRSS
Definition
A video sitemap is an XML sitemap extension that describes videos on your pages, including thumbnail, title, description and the video file or player URL, to help Google find and understand them.
Video sitemap, explained
Google's video sitemap docs list the required tags inside each <video:video> block: <video:thumbnail_loc>, <video:title>, <video:description> (up to 2,048 characters), and at least one of <video:content_loc>, pointing to the actual video file, or <video:player_loc>, pointing to a player for that specific video. Optional tags include <video:duration> in seconds, <video:expiration_date>, <video:publication_date>, restrictions by country or platform, and tags.
A video sitemap is one of three ways to give Google video details. The others are VideoObject structured data on the page and Open Graph video tags. Google's video best practices say to provide at least one; many sites use structured data as the main method and a sitemap to help discovery. Google also supports mRSS feeds as an alternative format.
Sitemaps don't override the basics. Google's video guidance says the video should be on a watch page whose main purpose is that video, the page must be indexed, the video must be visible rather than hidden behind other elements, and Google must be able to fetch the video file and a stable thumbnail URL. If the page isn't indexed, the video won't be either.
Search Console's Video indexing report shows which videos Google found and why others weren't indexed. Check it after adding the sitemap; the most common reasons for exclusion are that the video isn't the main content of the page or that Google couldn't fetch the thumbnail.
Why it matters for founders
If you make demo videos or tutorials, video results are another way to be found. The sitemap helps, but only on pages built around the video.
Example
Each product tutorial has its own page with the video at the top. You add a <video:video> block with thumbnail, title, description and player_loc for each, and VideoObject markup on the page.
Common mistakes
- Listing videos that are only a small embed on a text page.
- Thumbnail URLs that change or are blocked.
- Missing
content_locandplayer_locboth. - Blocking the video file from Google, which limits previews and key moments.
Sources
Checked
Related terms
- Video SEOVideo SEO is helping search engines find, understand and show your videos: a dedicated watch page, fetchable video files and thumbnails, and video details from structured data, sitemaps or Open Graph tags.
- XML sitemapAn XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs you want search engines to crawl and index, optionally with the date each one last changed. It helps discovery; it doesn't guarantee indexing.
- Structured data (JSON-LD)Structured data is machine-readable information about a page, usually written as JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary. It helps search engines understand what a page is about and can make it eligible for rich results.
- Sitemap indexA sitemap index is an XML file that lists other sitemap files instead of pages. It lets large sites split URLs across several sitemaps and submit them all through one file.