Creating a Video Sitemap

You can use the Google Video extension to the Sitemap protocol to give Google information about video content on your site.

You can create a new Sitemap based on the Sitemap protocol, add video information to an existing Sitemap, or, if you generate an mRSS feed for your site, you can submit the feed as a Sitemap.

Guidelines for video content in Sitemaps

Each Sitemap or mRSS feed file that you provide must be under 50MB in size when uncompressed, and can contain no more than 50,000 video items. If your uncompressed file is larger than 50MB, or you have more than 50,000 videos, you can submit multiple Sitemaps and a Sitemap index file.
  • Video content includes web pages which embed video, URLs to players for video, or the URLs of raw video content hosted on your site. If Google cannot discover video content at the URLs you provide, those records will be ignored by Googlebot.
  • Each URL entry must contain the following information:
    • Title
    • Description
    • Play page URL
    • Thumbnail URL
    • Raw video file location and/or the player URL (SWF)

    For more information about the required elements, see the table below.

  • Each Sitemap file that you provide must have no more than 50,000 entries. If you have more than 50,000 videos, you can submit multiple Sitemaps and a Sitemap index file. Sitemaps does not support nesting of Sitemaps index files. Keep in mind that if you are adding optional tags, you may hit the 50MB uncompressed limit before you hit the 50,000 video limit.
  • Google can crawl the following video file types: mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, .m4v, .mov, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .ra, .ram, .rm, .flv, .swf. All files must be accessible via HTTP. Metafiles that require a download of the source via streaming protocols are not supported.
  • Make sure that your robots.txt file isn't blocking any of the items (including the play page URL, the video URL, and the thumbnail URL) included in each Sitemap entry. More information about robots.txt.
  • Google web crawlers will verify that the information you include for each video matches your live site. To see how your site will appear to Googe, you should view your play pages in a text-only browser such as Lynx, or a more conventional browser where you've confirmed that Flash and JavaScript are disabled.
  • If you have multiple websites, you can simplify the process of creating and submitting Sitemaps by creating one or more Sitemaps that includes URLs for all your verified sites, and saving the Sitemap(s) to a single location. All sites must be verified in Webmaster Tools. More information about managing Sitemaps for multiple sites.

Adding video content to a Sitemap based on the Sitemap protocol

The entries in a video Sitemap must include a link to a landing page for a video and some required information. Many of the elements in a video Sitemap are optional, but they provide useful metadata that can enhance your video results and improve Google's ability to include your video in search results. 

Once you have created your Sitemap, you can submit it to Google using Webmaster Tools. Google doesn't guarantee that all videos included in a Sitemap will appear in our search results, or that we will use all the video information included in your Sitemap.

Here is a sample of a Sitemap entry for a page that includes video.


<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1"> 
   <url> 
     <loc>http://www.example.com/videos/some_video_landing_page.html</loc>
     <video:video>
       <video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc> 
       <video:title>Grilling steaks for summer</video:title>
       <video:description>Alkis shows you how to get perfectly done steaks every            
         time</video:description>
       <video:content_loc>http://www.example.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc>
       <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">
         http://www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123</video:player_loc>
       <video:duration>600</video:duration>
       <video:expiration_date>2009-11-05T19:20:30+08:00</video:expiration_date>
       <video:rating>4.2</video:rating> 
       <video:view_count>12345</video:view_count>    
       <video:publication_date>2007-11-05T19:20:30+08:00</video:publication_date>
       <video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>   
       <video:restriction relationship="allow">IE GB US CA</video:restriction> 
       <video:gallery_loc title="Cooking Videos">http://cooking.example.com</video:gallery_loc>
       <video:price currency="EUR">1.99</video:price>
       <video:requires_subscription>yes</video:requires_subscription>
       <video:uploader info="http://www.example.com/users/grillymcgrillerson">GrillyMcGrillerson
         </video:uploader>
       <video:live>no</video:live>
     </video:video> 
   </url> 
</urlset>

Video-specific tag definitions

Tag Required? Description
<loc> Required The tag specifies the landing page (aka play page, referrer page) for the video. When a user clicks on a video result on a search results page, they will be sent to this landing page. Must be a unique URL.

If your landing page features multiple videos, don't create a separate <loc> tag for each video. Instead, create a single <loc> tag that includes a <video:video> element for each video on the landing page.
<video:video> Required Encloses all information about the video.
<video:thumbnail_loc> Required A URL pointing to the video thumbnail image file. Images must be at least 160 x 90 pixels and at most 1920x1080 pixels. We recommend images in .jpg, .png, or. gif formats.
<video:title> Required The title of the video. Maximum 100 characters. The title must be in plain text only, and any HTML entities should be escaped or wrapped in a CDATA block.
<video:description> Required The description of the video. Maximum 2048 characters. The description must be in plain text only, and any HTML entities should be escaped or wrapped in a CDATA block.
<video:content_loc> Depends You must specify at least one of <video:player_loc> or <video:content_loc>.

A URL pointing to the actual video media file. This file should be in .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, .m4v, .mov, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .ra, .ram, .rm, .flv, or other video file format.

Providing this file allows Google to generate video thumbnails and video previews, and can help Google verify your video.

Best practice: Ensure that only Googlebot accesses your content by using a reverse DNS lookup.
<video:player_loc> Depends You must specify at least one of <video:player_loc> or <video:content_loc> .

A URL pointing to a player for a specific video. Usually this is the information in the src element of an <embed> tag and should not be the same as the content of the <loc> tag. ​

The optional attribute allow_embed specifies whether Google can embed the video in search results. Allowed values are Yes or No.

The optional attribute autoplay has a user-defined string (in the example above, ap=1) that Google may append (if appropriate) to the flashvars parameter to enable autoplay of the video. For example: <embed src="http://www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123" autoplay="ap=1"/>.

Example:

Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x1o2g

Best practice: Ensure that only Googlebot accesses your content by using a reverse DNS lookup.
<video:duration> Recommended The duration of the video in seconds. Value must be between 0 and 28800 (8 hours).
<video:expiration_date> Recommended when applicable The date after which the video will no longer be available, in W3C format. Don't supply this information if your video does not expire.

Allowed values are complete date (YYYY-MM-DD) and complete date plus hours, minutes and seconds, and timezone (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss+TZD). For example, 2012-07-16T19:20:30+08:00.
<video:rating> Optional The rating of the video. Allowed values are float numbers in the range 0.0 to 5.0.
<video:view_count> Optional The number of times the video has been viewed.
<video:publication_date> Optional The date the video was first published, in W3C format. Acceptable values are complete date (YYYY-MM-DD) and complete date plus hours, minutes and seconds, and timezone (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss+TZD). For example, 2007-07-16T19:20:30+08:00.
<video:family_friendly>

 

 Optional No if the video should be available only to users with SafeSearch turned off.
<video:tag> Optional A tag associated with the video. Tags are generally very short descriptions of key concepts associated with a video or piece of content. A single video could have several tags, although it might belong to only one category. For example, a video about grilling food may belong in the Grilling category, but could be tagged "steak", "meat", "summer", and "outdoor". Create a new <video:tag> element for each tag associated with a video. A maximum of 32 tags is permitted.
<video:category> Optional The video's category. For example, cooking. The value should be a string no longer than 256 characters. In general, categories are broad groupings of content by subject. Usually a video will belong to a single category. For example, a site about cooking could have categories for Broiling, Baking, and Grilling.
<video:restriction> Optional A space-delimited list of countries where the video may or may not be played. Allowed values are country codes in ISO 3166 format. Only one <video:restriction> tag can appear for each video. If there is no <video:restriction> tag, it is assumed that the video can be played in all territories.

The required attribute "relationship" specifies whether the video is restricted or permitted for the specified countries. Allowed values are allow or deny.
<video:gallery_loc> Optional A link to the gallery (collection of videos) in which this video appears. Only one <video:gallery_loc> tag can be listed for each video. The optional attribute title indicates the title of the gallery.
<video:price> Optional The price to download or view the video. Do not use this tag for free videos.

The required attribute currency specifies the currency in ISO 4217 format.

The optional attribute type specifies the purchase option. Allowed values are rent and own. If this is not specified, the default value is own.

The optional attribute resolution specifies the purchased resolution. Allows values are HD and SD.

More than one <video:price> element can be listed (for example, in order to specify various currencies, purchasing options, or resolutions).
<video:requires_subscription> Optional Indicates whether a subscription (either paid or free) is required to view the video. Allowed values are yes or no.
<video:uploader> Optional The video uploader's name. Only one <video:uploader> is allowed per video.

The optional attribute info specifies the URL of a webpage with additional information about this uploader. This URL must be on the same domain as the <loc> tag.
<video:platform> Optional A list of space-delimited platforms where the video may or may not be played. Allowed values are web, mobile, and tv. Only one <video:platform> tag can appear for each video. If there is no <video:platform> tag, it is assumed that the video can be played on all platforms.

The required attribute relationship specifies whether the video is restricted or permitted for the specified platforms. Allowed values are allow or deny.
<video:live> Optional Indicates whether the video is a live stream. Allowed values are yes or no.

Using an mRSS feed instead of a Sitemap

Google supports mRSS, an RSS module that supplements the element capabilities of RSS 2.0 to allow for more robust media syndication. If you publish an mRSS feed for the video content on your site, you can submit the mRSS feed's URL instead of (or in addition to) a Sitemap. Google also supports RSS 2.0 using enclosure tags for video content and thumbnail urls.