A video sitemap is an XML sitemap extension that supplies metadata about video pages so search engines can better discover and understand the content.
What Video sitemap means
Video sitemap entries describe videos associated with landing pages. They complement crawlable page links and, where appropriate, visible structured data; they do not replace a video page with accessible content. Search features remain subject to eligibility and search-engine decisions.
Decision rule and evidence
Use a video sitemap when the site has meaningful video landing pages and can maintain accurate metadata. Keep each entry aligned with a canonical public page and remove entries when video access or availability changes.
Practical workflow
- List canonical video landing pages that users and crawlers can access.
- Gather title, description, thumbnail, duration and player or content URLs from the publishing source.
- Generate the required XML using stable, absolute URLs.
- Validate the sitemap and sample entries against the rendered page and structured data.
- Submit or expose the sitemap, then monitor processing and errors separately from performance.
Verification and common mistakes
Check that the sitemap URL returns XML, the landing page is crawlable and the thumbnail/video resources can be fetched where required. Record validation date and any intentionally excluded videos.