Spring cleaning: some sitemap extension tags are going away
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Friday, May 06, 2022
Over the years, we introduced a number of tags and tag attributes for Google sitemap extensions,
specifically the Image and
Video extensions. Most of these tags
were added to allow site owners to deliver data more easily to Search.
Upon evaluating the value of the Google sitemap extension tags, we decided to officially deprecate
some tags and attributes, and remove them from our documentation. The deprecated tags will have no
effect on indexing and search features after August 6, 2022.
If you are a sitemap plugin developer or manage your own sitemaps, there's no immediate action
required; you can leave these tags and attributes in place without drawbacks. In the future,
Search Console may show warnings once these updates are included in the next schema versions of
the Image and
Video extensions.
By simplifying sitemap extensions, we hope you can also reduce complexity of your codebases, and
sitemaps will be less cluttered in general. If you have questions or comments, check out our
sitemaps documentation, or catch us on
Twitter or in the
Search Central forums.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["Google is deprecating certain tags and attributes in image and video sitemap extensions, effective August 6, 2022."],["These deprecated tags, including `caption`, `geo_location`, `title` for images and `category`, `player_loc` attributes, `gallery_loc`, `price`, `tvshow` for videos, will no longer influence indexing or search features."],["No immediate action is required for website owners or sitemap plugin developers as these tags can remain without negative consequences."],["Google recommends following their best practices for images and videos instead of using the deprecated tags for providing relevant information."],["This simplification aims to reduce codebase complexity and improve sitemap clarity."]]],["Google deprecated several tags and attributes within its Image and Video sitemap extensions, effective August 6, 2022. These include `caption`, `geo_location`, `title`, and `license` for Image sitemaps, and `category`, `player_loc` attributes, `gallery_loc`, and `price`, and `tvshow` for Video sitemaps. While no immediate action is required, deprecated tags will not impact indexing. Site owners are encouraged to follow best practices instead. Future Search Console updates will include warnings for these tags.\n"]]
