Get your videos on Google

Google Search is an entry point for people to discover and watch videos. While Google tries to automatically understand details about your video, you can explicitly provide information, such as the description, thumbnail URL, upload date, and duration, by marking up your video with VideoObject. Videos can appear in Google Search results, video search results, Google Images, and Google Discover.

A screenshot that shows video content in Google search results, the video tab, and Discover

Based on how you mark up your content, your videos may also be eligible for the following video enhancements:

Video enhancements

LIVE badge: Get a LIVE badge added to your video by marking your video with BroadcastEvent. The LIVE badge can be applied to any public video that is live-streamed for any length of time. Here are a few examples:

  • Sporting events
  • Awards shows
  • Influencer videos
  • Live streaming video games

Make sure you follow the LIVE badge guidelines and use the Indexing API to make sure Google crawls your page at the right time.

Video with a LIVE badge in Search results
Clips (limited access): Help users quickly navigate to specific points in a video. Video with clips in Search results
Video host carousel (limited access): Enable users to explore your video gallery pages by adding ItemList structured data.

Examples

Standard video rich result

Example of standard video search results

Here's an example of a single VideoObject.

LIVE badge

Example of a video in search results with a LIVE badge

Here's an example of VideoObject and BroadcastEvent in JSON-LD code.

Here's an example of VideoObject and ItemList structured data. This feature is currently limited to a small set of providers.

JSON-LD
Microdata

Clips (limited access)

Example of a video in search results with clips

Here's an example of VideoObject and Clip in JSON-LD code. This feature is currently limited to a small set of providers. If you would like to participate, register your interest in our form.

AMP page with a video

Here's an example of a VideoObject on an AMP page.

Enhance your videos on Google

Here's an overview of how to enhance your videos on Google:

  1. Ensure that Googlebot can crawl your video pages (meaning, your pages aren't protected by a robots.txt file or robots meta tag).
  2. Make sure you follow our guidelines.
  3. If you have several copies of the same video on your site hosted under different URLs, use canonical URLs on each copy of the page.
  4. Add structured data to your video pages.
  5. Test and preview your structured data.
  6. Check the index status of your URLs and request for your URL to be crawled with the URL inspection tool in Search Console. To confirm if crawlers are able to access structured data on your page, use the Live Test feature.
  7. Keep Google informed of new video pages or changes to existing video pages. If you're implementing BroadcastEvent, use the Indexing API to make sure Google crawls your livestream video at the right time.

Monitor performance in Search

To understand how users interact with your videos, use the following Google tools:

  • Use the Performance Report in Search Console to see how your videos appear in either general Search results or Discover. You can automatically pull these results with the Search Console API.
  • Use the Rich result status report in Search Console to understand what Google could or could not read from your site, and troubleshoot rich result errors.

If you're experiencing unexpected fluctuations or inconsistencies in your traffic, use the troubleshooter to identify and resolve the issues.

Guidelines

To help Google better understand your video, make sure you follow the guidelines:

LIVE badge guidelines

If you're adding BroadcastEvent to livestream videos, follow these guidelines:

  • Don't use vulgar or potentially offensive language in the structured data.
  • To make sure Google crawls your livestream video at the right time, use the Indexing API. Call the API for the following events:
    • When the video goes live
    • When the video has stopped streaming, and the page's markup has been updated to indicate the endDate
    • Whenever a change has happened in the markup and Google needs to be notified

Best practices for marking timestamps on YouTube

If your video is hosted on YouTube, Google Search may automatically enable clips for your video based on the video description on YouTube, and you may not have to mark specific timestamps in your YouTube description. However, you can tell us more explicitly about the important points in your video and we will prefer that information. The following diagram shows how timestamps and labels in a YouTube video description can appear in Search results:

A video in Search results with timestamps and labels
1. Timestamp: When a clip starts.
2. Label: The name of the clip.

Keep in mind the following guidelines when formatting timestamps and labels for YouTube descriptions:

  • Format the timestamp in the following format: [hour]:[minute]:[second]. If there's no hour, you don't need to include it.
  • Specify the label of the timestamp on the same line as the timestamp.
  • Place each timestamp on a new line in the video description.
  • Link the timestamp to the specified point in the video.
  • Make sure the label contains at least one word.
  • List the timestamps in chronological order.

Clip guidelines (limited access)

If you're adding Clip to mark video segments, follow these guidelines:

  • The video must be publicly available to watch without a subscription.
  • The video must have the ability to deep link into some point other than the start point in the video URL. For example, http://www.example.com/example?t=30 starts 30 seconds into a video.
  • Clip structured data must be added to a page where users can watch the video. It's a bad user experience to point users to a page where they can't watch the video.
  • The total video duration must be a minimum of 30 seconds.
  • Make sure that no two clips on the same video defined on the same page share a start time.
  • The video must have VideoObject structured data.

Structured data type definitions

This section describes the structured data types related to video features in Google Search. You must include the required VideoObject properties for your content to be eligible for display as a video rich result. You can also include the recommended properties to add more information about your content, which could provide a better user experience. In addition to VideoObject, you can add the following data types to enable video enhancements in Google Search:

  • BroadcastEvent: Mark up livestream videos to enable a LIVE badge on your video.
  • ItemList: Mark up pages with a list of videos to enable a video host carousel.
  • Clip: Mark important segments in your video to help users quickly navigate to specific points in a video.

VideoObject

The full definition of VideoObject is available at schema.org/VideoObject. If you don't include the required properties, Google may not be able to extract any information about the video. You can also include the recommended properties to add more information about your content, which could provide a better user experience.

Required properties
description

Text

The description of the video. HTML tags are ignored.
name

Text

The title of the video
thumbnailUrl

Repeated ImageObject or URL

A URL pointing to the video thumbnail image file.

  • Image URLs must be crawlable and indexable.
  • Images must represent the marked up content.
  • Images must be in .jpg, .png, or. gif format.
  • Images must 60px x 30px, at minimum.
uploadDate

Date

The date the video was first published, in ISO 8601 format.
Recommended properties
contentUrl

URL

A URL pointing to the actual video media file.

Make sure to follow our Video best practices.
duration

Duration

The duration of the video in ISO 8601 format. For example, T00H30M5S represents a duration of "thirty minutes and five seconds".
embedUrl

URL

A URL pointing to a player for the specific video. Usually this is the information in the src element of an <embed> tag.

Make sure to follow our Video best practices.
expires

Date

If applicable, the date after which the video will no longer be available, in ISO 8601 format. Don't supply this information if your video does not expire.
hasPart

If your video has important segments, nest the required Clip properties in your VideoObject. For example:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "http://schema.org/",
  "@type": "VideoObject",
  "name": "Cat video",
  "hasPart": {
    "@type": "Clip",
    "name": "Cat jumps",
    "startOffset": 30,
    "url": "http://www.example.com/example?t=30"
  }
}
</script>
interactionStatistic

InteractionCounter

The number of times the video has been watched. For example:

"interactionStatistic":
  {
    "@type": "InteractionCounter",
    "interactionType": { "@type": "http://schema.org/WatchAction" },
    "userInteractionCount": 12345
  }
publication

If your video is happening live and you want to be eligible for the LIVE badge, nest the BroadcastEvent properties in your VideoObject. For example:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "http://schema.org/",
  "@type": "VideoObject",
  "name": "Cat video",
  "publication": {
    "@type": "BroadcastEvent",
    "name": "First scheduled broadcast",
    "isLiveBroadcast": true,
    "startDate": "2018-10-27T14:00:00+00:00",
    "endDate": "2018-10-27T14:37:14+00:00"
  }
}
</script>

BroadcastEvent

To be eligible for display with a LIVE badge, nest the following properties in your VideoObject. While BroadcastEvent properties aren't required, you must add the following properties if you want your video to display with a LIVE badge.

The full definition of BroadcastEvent is available at schema.org/BroadcastEvent.

Required properties
publication

BroadcastEvent

Describes when the video is to be streamed live. Can be a list or a single instance.
publication.endDate

DateTime

Time and date of when the livestream ends or is expected to end, in ISO 8601 format.

It is required to provide the endDate once the video has finished and is no longer live. If the expected endDate is unknown prior to the livestream starting, we recommend providing an approximate endDate.

If endDate is in the past or present, it indicates stream actually ended and is no longer live. If endDate is in the future, it indicates stream is scheduled to end at that time.
publication.isLiveBroadcast

Boolean

Set to true if the video is, has been, or will be streamed live.
publication.startDate

DateTime

Time and date of when the livestream starts or is expected to start, in ISO 8601 format. If startDate is in the past or present, it indicates that the stream actually started. If startDate is in the future, it indicates stream is scheduled to start at that time.

ItemList (limited access)

To help Google better understand your video gallery pages, add the following ItemList properties in addition to VideoObject properties. For more information about carousels, see Carousel.

The full definition of ItemList is available at schema.org/ItemList.

Required properties
itemListElement

ListItem

Annotation for a single item page. Each ListItem element should include VideoObject properties as well as ListItem properties.
ListItem.position

Integer

Ordinal position of the item page in the list. For example:

"itemListElement": [
  {
    "@type": "VideoObject",
    "position": 1,
    ... other VideoObject properties ...
  }, {
    "@type": "VideoObject",
    "position": 2,
    ... other VideoObject properties ...
  }
]
ListItem.url

URL

The canonical URL of the item page. Every item should have a unique URL.

Clip (limited access)

To be eligible for clips, nest the following properties in your VideoObject. While Clip properties aren't required, you must add the following properties if you want your video to display with video segments.

The full definition of Clip is available at schema.org/Clip.

Required properties
name

Text

A descriptive title for the content of the clip.
startOffset

Number

The start time of the clip expressed as the number of seconds from the beginning of the work.
url

URL

A URL that points to the start time of the clip.

The clip URL must point to the same URL path as the video with additional query parameters that specify the time.

For example, the following URL means the video starts at 2:00 minutes:

"url": "https://www.example.com/example?t=120"
Recommended properties
endOffset

Number

The end time of the clip expressed as the number of seconds from the beginning of the work.