Google Video Sitemaps

Creating and submitting Video Sitemaps files

About Google Video Sitemaps

Google Video Sitemaps is an extension of the Sitemap protocol that enables you to publish and syndicate online video content and its relevant metadata to Google in order to make it searchable in the Google Video index. You can use a Video Sitemap to add descriptive information – such as a video’s title, description, duration, etc. – that makes it easier for users to find a particular piece of content. When a user finds your video through Google, they will be linked to your hosted environments for the full playback.

When you submit a Video Sitemap to Google, we will make the included video URLs searchable on Google Video. Search results will contain a thumbnail image (provided by you or autogenerated by Google) of your video content, as well as information (such as title) contained in your Video Sitemap. In addition, your video may also appear in other Google search products. During this beta period, we can’t predict or guarantee when or if your videos will be added to our index, but as we refine our product, we expect both coverage and indexing speed to improve.

Google can crawl the following video file types: .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, .mov, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .ra, .ram, .rm, .flv. All files must be accessible via HTTP. Metafiles that require a download of the source via streaming protocols are not supported at this time.