The Video Indexing Report: Why Google Did Not Index Your Video
Search Console's Video indexing report tells you which of your pages have a video Google indexed, and gives a reason for the ones it did not. Most of those reasons come down to a few rules about watch pages, thumbnails and how the player loads. This guide walks through the report and each reason.
This guide is based on Google's Search Console Help article on the Video indexing report, Search Central's video SEO best practices, its video sitemaps documentation and the video structured data reference. How to host, embed and speed up video is in our separate guide to video on websites; this one is about what Search Console reports and how to fix it.
What the report shows
Google describes the report as showing "how many videos on your site are eligible for video features on Google Search", with reasons why other videos could not be indexed. It splits pages into two statuses:
- Video indexed: Google indexed the page and a video on it. Google "indexes only one video per page".
- No video indexed: Google found at least one video on the page but could not index any of them. The report shows information about only one video per page, even when there are several.
Two limits matter before you read any number. First, the report "covers only indexed pages". A page that is not indexed, including a non-canonical duplicate, will not appear here at all; that is a page problem and belongs in the Page indexing report. Second, the chart counts pages, not unique videos, so the same video embedded on several pages, or several videos on one page, will not add up to your video library.
The report also has an impressions line for Search (all results and the video-only results) and Discover, totalled by page. Google calls it "a general guide rather than an exact count", and says the Performance report totals are usually lower. For actual performance, Google points to the Videos search appearance filter in the Performance report. Problems with VideoObject markup show in a separate Video rich result report.
Reading the totals
Google gives a simple check: Video indexed plus No video indexed should roughly equal the number of pages on your site that have a video.
| What you see | What it means | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Total well below your number of video pages | Google is not indexing the pages that hold the videos | Page indexing report and URL Inspection for those pages |
| High No video indexed count | The pages are indexed but the videos are not | The reasons table in this report |
| A page you expect is missing | Either the page is not indexed or Google did not detect a video on it | URL Inspection: a detected video gives a Video indexing section |
You can filter the whole report by a sitemap you submitted or listed in robots.txt. The filter shows indexed pages from that sitemap where Google found a video, whether or not the sitemap entry has video tags. Our robots.txt and XML sitemaps guide covers submitting one.
The watch page rule
"Video isn't on a watch page" is the reason most business sites will see, and it is usually not a fault. Google's report states that "only videos that are on a watch page are eligible for indexing", and defines a watch page as one whose "main purpose is to show a user a single video".
Google's examples of pages that are not watch pages include a blog post where the video supports the text, a product page with a complementary video, a category page listing several videos of equal prominence, and a movie review page with a trailer. So a service page with a short explainer video will often land in No video indexed, and that is Google working as designed.
Google's best practices also say that a non-watch page "can still be eligible to appear as a text result" and as a Google Images result with a video badge, and that it is fine to put the same video on a watch page and on another page. Google recommends a dedicated watch page for each video "if it makes sense for your business". Whether a separate page is worth it depends on whether people would search for that video on its own. A recorded webinar or a how-to may be worth one; a ten-second brand clip on the homepage usually is not. That last judgement is ours, not Google's.
If a page really is built around one video and still gets this reason, Google suggests checking with URL Inspection that the video appears in the rendered HTML and moving the video container higher in the HTML. For paywalled video, add paywall structured data.
Being a watch page is not the only bar. Google's best practices add: "The indexed watch page must be performing well in Search before its video can be considered for indexing." They also say an indexed watch page does not mean the video will be indexed too.
Each reason and its fix
These are the reasons the report lists, with the fix Google gives, shortened.
| Reason | What Google says to do |
|---|---|
| Video isn't on a watch page | See above: a dedicated watch page, or accept it for supporting videos. |
| Cannot determine video position and size | The player is not on the page at load, usually because an image of the player must be clicked first. Load the player at its real size and position without user interaction. |
| MRSS failure; try using schema.org instead | Google could not process your media RSS description. Use schema.org markup instead. |
| No thumbnail URL provided | Give a thumbnail in structured data, a sitemap or mRSS. If you did, check that an HTML tag does not name a different thumbnail for the same video. |
| Unsupported thumbnail format | Use a supported image format with the matching file extension. |
| Invalid thumbnail size | Use a supported size (minimum 60x30 pixels, larger preferred). |
| Thumbnail blocked by robots.txt | Unblock it, or use a thumbnail Google can reach without a login. |
| Thumbnail is transparent | Google requires that "at least 80% of the image must have an alpha level above 250". |
| Thumbnail could not be crawled due to hostload | Your server seems at its crawl capacity; Google cannot fetch the thumbnail until load drops. |
| Thumbnail could not be reached | Not a robots.txt issue: the image may be password protected or gone. |
| Video not processed / not processed yet | Google decided not to index the video, or is still processing it ("check back in a few days"). Both point to stable URLs. |
| Video not found on host service | The video is missing or private on the hosting service. Check the video ID and update the page. |
| Invalid thumbnail | Any other thumbnail problem: check it exists, follows the guidelines and is reachable. |
Two things trip sites up again and again here. The first is the click-to-play image. A placeholder image that loads the real player on click (sometimes called a facade, which our video on websites guide recommends for speed) can produce "Cannot determine video position and size", because Google's rule is "Don't rely on user actions (such as swiping, clicking, or typing) to load the video." On a page where the video should be indexed, load the player itself. The second is unstable URLs. Google warns that some CDNs use quickly expiring URLs, and asks for "a single unique and stable thumbnail URL for each video", with stable video file URLs too.
Google's thumbnail specification lists BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG and AVIF as supported formats, and says the file must be accessible to Googlebot and Googlebot Images. On the Last crawled date in an issue, note that it is when the page was crawled, not the video.
The details for one page
Click a page in the report to see what Google found. If a page has several videos, the details are about "the most likely candidate for indexing".
- Video URL: the file or player. Several URLs listed means Google treats them as the same video and may mix metadata from them, such as the title from one and the thumbnail from another. N/A means Google saw a video but no URL; add
contentUrlorembedUrlin VideoObject markup, an HTML tag or a video sitemap entry. - Thumbnail URL: yours, or a frame Google extracted. If neither exists, "the video can't be indexed".
- Is on a watch page?: Yes when the page is mainly a single video, No when there is other meaningful content.
- Source: where each detail came from, such as structured data, a sitemap, Open Graph tags, an HTML tag, mRSS, the video's poster attribute, the hosting platform or Google itself.
Sitemaps and structured data
Google supports three ways to describe a video: structured data, video sitemaps and the Open Graph protocol. The report's own advice on thumbnails sums up the main rule: "provide the same title, thumbnail URL, and video URL in all sources" for the same video on the same page.
VideoObject structured data. The required properties are name, thumbnailUrl and uploadDate. Google asks for unique values in name, thumbnailUrl and description for each video. The general approach to markup is in our structured data basics guide.
Video sitemaps. You can add video tags to an existing sitemap or keep a separate one. The required tags are video:thumbnail_loc, video:title, video:description (up to 2048 characters) and either video:content_loc or video:player_loc; Google prefers content_loc where possible. Google also asks you not to list videos that are unrelated to the page, and every URL in the sitemap must be reachable by Googlebot: not blocked by robots.txt, a login or a firewall.
For embeds from YouTube, Vimeo or Facebook, Google may index the video both on your page and on the platform's page. It still recommends listing your own watch pages in your video sitemap.
To take a video down, Google suggests a noindex on a watch page whose video was removed or has expired, or an expiry date via the expires property or video:expiration_date.
Validating a fix
Once every instance of a reason is fixed, open that reason and click Validate fix. Google checks the affected URLs only, emails you the result, and says validation "typically takes up to about two weeks, but in some cases can take much longer". It stops at the first page that still has the issue. Google also updates counts on its normal crawl, so validating is optional. To check a single page, use URL Inspection and its Video indexing section.
Our own habit, not Google guidance: decide first which videos should be indexed at all. Check those pages in URL Inspection after publishing, then look at the report monthly, and leave "not a watch page" alone on pages where the video only supports the text.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the report say my video is not on a watch page?
Google indexes only videos on watch pages, meaning pages whose main purpose is to show one video. A blog post, service page or product page where the video supports the text is not a watch page. That page can still show as a text result.
Does Google index more than one video per page?
No. Google's report says it "indexes only one video per page". If several videos are on a page, the details shown are about the most likely candidate.
Why is my page missing from the Video indexing report?
The report covers only indexed pages where Google detected a video. If the page is not indexed, including as a non-canonical duplicate, check the Page indexing report. If it is indexed, inspect it: a detected video gives a Video indexing section.
Do I need a video sitemap?
Not strictly. Google supports structured data, video sitemaps and Open Graph tags, and says a video sitemap is a good way to help it find video content, especially new or hard-to-discover videos. Whatever you use, keep the title, thumbnail and video URLs the same across sources.
Can a click-to-play placeholder stop my video being indexed?
It can. Google says not to rely on clicks or other user actions to load the video, and the report's "Cannot determine video position and size" reason is usually caused by an image of the player that must be clicked.
Want your videos and pages checked as part of regular site care? See our website maintenance and website development services and all our services, or email [email protected].