How to Configure Yoast Video SEO Sitemaps

On a WordPress site, Yoast Video SEO creates a sitemap that helps search engines find videos and understand which pages contain them. A sitemap is a file that lists URLs and, for videos, details such as the title, description, thumbnail, and player or media location. Yoast’s video sitemap works alongside its regular XML sitemap, which lists the site’s pages.

To configure Video SEO, enable Yoast’s general sitemap feature and check the video details on several pages that contain videos. Then submit Yoast’s sitemap index to Google Search Console and confirm that Google can access those pages and their video resources. A sitemap helps Google find content, but it does not guarantee that Google will index a page or show a video feature in search results.

Check the plugin and sitemap prerequisites

Yoast Video SEO requires Yoast SEO, and Yoast’s installation guidance also specifies Yoast SEO Premium. Check your Yoast account or product package to confirm that your subscription includes Video SEO, then review the installation requirements before installing or updating the plugin.

In WordPress, make sure Yoast SEO’s XML sitemap feature is enabled. Video SEO adds video information to the sitemap setup; it does not replace the general sitemap. Yoast’s Video SEO configuration guide describes the sitemap feature as a prerequisite. Settings and labels can change between plugin releases, so check the current Video SEO changelog if your WordPress or Yoast SEO version does not meet the listed requirements.

Configure Video SEO in WordPress

Open Yoast SEO → Video SEO in the WordPress dashboard. Review the available settings before checking individual posts.

Under General Settings, you can access the video sitemap and enable Media RSS enhancements. You can also set up custom fields or enter an Embedly API key. Embed Settings controls how other sites play your videos and how embeds behave. These settings include responsive resizing and a YouTube option that loads the embed after a visitor clicks play. The controls available to you depend on your plugin version and video setup.

Look for the video sitemap scanning and reindexing controls as well. Yoast can limit scanning to items that contain videos, and its reindex option scans content so the plugin can update its video information. A force reindex also rescans videos that Yoast has already indexed. Use it when existing video details need to be processed again.

Review video details on each page

After saving or publishing a page with an embedded video, open the page’s Yoast Video tab or metabox. Check that Yoast detected the correct video and that its metadata describes the video accurately.

Yoast draws the video title and description from Search appearance settings and uses the page title and opening text as fallbacks. If you have not entered a duration, it attempts to calculate the duration. If you leave the thumbnail unset, Yoast says it uses the video’s first frame. Add a custom thumbnail when that frame is unclear or does not represent the video well.

A video tag is a label for the video. If you do not enter one, Yoast can use the focus keyphrase or post tags. Review the “not family friendly” setting where relevant, since it affects video metadata and sitemap output. These defaults save you from entering details by hand, but they do not ensure that the details accurately describe the video. Make sure the video is a meaningful part of the page, and keep its title, description, and thumbnail consistent with what visitors see.

Google’s video sitemap requirements include a thumbnail, title, description, and either a video file URL or a player URL. Google limits the description to 2,048 characters and accepts durations from 1 to 28,800 seconds. Its video sitemap documentation explains these fields and URL requirements.

Submit Yoast’s sitemap index

Yoast includes the video sitemap in its XML sitemap index. A sitemap index is a file that points to the site’s individual sitemap files. Find the index through Yoast’s sitemap settings, then submit that index in the Sitemaps report in Google Search Console. Yoast’s video sitemap address normally ends in video-sitemap.xml, but the index is the file to submit.

Google treats sitemap submission as a discovery hint. Submission does not guarantee that Google will fetch every listed URL or index every page. You can check the Google sitemap submission guidance for how Google processes submitted sitemaps.

Check that Google can access the video

A sitemap entry helps only when Google can reach the page and the video resources it lists. Open a few entries and check that each page is the intended canonical page, meaning the URL Google should treat as the main version. Make sure the video is visible and relevant, and that the thumbnail and player or video-file URL load without a login. Check that robots.txt, the file that lists crawl rules for your site, along with firewalls and other access controls, does not block Google from fetching those resources.

Google also expects a stable thumbnail URL that Googlebot and Googlebot Images can access. If the thumbnail changes location or requires authentication, the sitemap can point to a resource Google cannot use. Google’s video indexing guidance explains why page visibility, thumbnail access, and video prominence matter for eligibility.

Reindex when videos are missing

If the video sitemap is empty, first confirm that Yoast’s general sitemap feature is enabled and that the affected posts show detected video details in the Yoast Video panel. Then run a reindex. For posts published before you activated Video SEO, the initial reindex lets Yoast scan existing content. If you changed details for videos Yoast already indexed, use the force-reindex option to scan them again.

Open the video sitemap after reindexing to see whether it contains entries. If it remains empty, investigate theme or plugin conflicts. Yoast’s blank sitemap troubleshooting guidance also recommends checking the plugin setup and reindexing. In Search Console, review sitemap processing errors, then verify that the listed page and media URLs are accessible to Google.

Change the video sitemap URL only when necessary

Most sites should keep Yoast’s default video sitemap URL. Changing the final part of its URL requires editing PHP and temporarily disabling sitemaps. Yoast documents the procedure in its sitemap URL customization instructions. A mistake can make the sitemap unavailable, so make this change on a staging site or ask a WordPress developer to handle it. Then re-enable the sitemaps and check the sitemap index.

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