VideoObject Schema: Complete Reference

By Amit Patel

VideoObject schema describes a video — its title, description, thumbnail, upload date, and content URL — making it eligible for video rich results, key moments, and Live badges in Google Search and Video search. It is one of the types that still reliably earns a visible result, and it pairs directly with the Video indexing report in Search Console. This reference covers the required properties and the details that decide whether a video is indexed and shown.

What VideoObject Does

It makes a video understandable and eligible for video results — the thumbnail-led listings in Search and the Videos tab — and enables enhancements like key moments and Live badges.

Video is one of the surfaces AI and search still send real traffic to, so VideoObject remains worth implementing. It is also the recommended way to earn instructional visibility now that the HowTo rich result is gone.

Required Properties

The essentials are name, description, thumbnailUrl, and uploadDate; strongly recommended are contentUrl and/or embedUrl, and duration.

The thumbnailUrl must be a crawlable image meeting Google’s size requirements, and uploadDate should be accurate. A missing or blocked thumbnail is the most common reason a video fails to index. Provide contentUrl (the raw file) or embedUrl (the player) so Google can reach the media. Validate with the Rich Results Test.

Key Moments and Live

Key moments let users jump to segments — declared via a Clip or via SeekToAction for sites with a compatible player — and the BroadcastEvent extension enables the LIVE badge for live streams.

Key moments make video listings more useful and clickable; they require either explicit Clip markup with start/end times or SeekToAction support. Live badges need publication as a BroadcastEvent with start and end times. Both are optional enhancements on top of the base VideoObject.

The Video Indexing Connection

Valid VideoObject markup is what feeds the Video indexing report in Search Console — that report tells you whether Google recognized and indexed each video, and its “not indexed” reasons usually trace back to markup or thumbnail problems.

So this type and that report are two sides of one workflow: add correct VideoObject markup, then confirm indexing in the Video indexing report. Prominence on the page and a crawlable thumbnail matter as much as the markup itself.

Example Markup

A minimal VideoObject (shown as code):

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "VideoObject",
  "name": "Example Video",
  "description": "A short description of the video.",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://example.com/thumb.jpg",
  "uploadDate": "2026-07-17",
  "contentUrl": "https://example.com/video.mp4"
}
</script>

See JSON-LD vs Microdata for the format.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

VideoObject is a high-value, still-supported type: correct name, description, thumbnail, and upload date make a video eligible for prominent results, and optional key moments and Live badges add more. Pair it with the Video indexing report to confirm success — the same measure-what-you-mark-up loop the schema cluster encourages throughout.