Google image sitemaps
The Google image sitemap rules,
as documented
What Google documents, in its own words. Verified from Google's page on 2026-10-09.
Google's page explains how to tell Google about images with a sitemap. This page lists those statements with the exact wording from Google.
What Google says
| Topic | What Google says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | “Image sitemaps are a way of telling Google about other images on your site, especially those that we might not otherwise find (such as images your site reaches with JavaScript code).” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Separate or combined | “You can create a separate image sitemap or add image sitemap tags to your existing sitemap; either approach is equally fine for Google.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Sitemap best practices | “Image sitemaps are based on generic sitemaps so the general sitemap best practices also apply to image sitemaps.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Required tags | “To make sure Google can use your image sitemap, you must use the following required tags:” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| image:image | “Encloses all information about a single image. Each <url> tag can contain up to 1,000 <image:image> tags.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| image:loc | “The URL of the image.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Other domains | “In some cases, the image URL may not be on the same domain as your main site. This is fine, as long as you verify both domains in Search Console.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| robots.txt | “In addition, make sure that your robots.txt file doesn't disallow the crawling of any content you want indexed.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Deprecated tags | “We removed the following tags and attributes from our documentation: <image:caption>, <image:geo_location>, <image:title>, <image:license>.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
| Troubleshooting | “If you're having trouble with your sitemap, you can investigate the errors with Google Search Console.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-09 |
How to apply it
A checklist built only from the guidance in Google's page.
- List each page in a url element, with its images in image:image elements.
- Give every image its URL in image:loc, up to 1,000 images per page.
- If images sit on another domain, verify both domains in Search Console.
- Check that robots.txt does not block any image you want indexed.
- Submit the sitemap and use Search Console to investigate errors.
Questions
Do I need a separate image sitemap?
No. Google says either a separate image sitemap or image tags in your existing sitemap is equally fine.
Which tags are required?
Google lists image:image and image:loc as the required tags.
How many images can one URL have?
Google says each url tag can contain up to 1,000 image:image tags.
Can images be hosted on another domain?
Yes. Google says this is fine as long as you verify both domains in Search Console.
Are image:caption and image:title still used?
Google says it removed image:caption, image:geo_location, image:title and image:license from its documentation.
How current is this page?
Every quote was read from Google's page on 2026-10-09. The page showed "Last updated 2025-12-10 UTC". Google can change its documentation, so treat the linked page as the final word.
Sources
- Image sitemaps (Google Search Central), read on 2026-10-09
Let Balzac write the articles.
Type your website. Balzac finds the searches you can win, writes articles built to rank on Google and get cited by ChatGPT, and publishes them for you.
3 free articles · No card needed