Search Console Video Indexing Report: How to Read and Fix It

If you have videos on your site and they never show up with a thumbnail or in the Videos tab, the new Search Console Video indexing report tells you why. It shows which pages have a video Google indexed, which don’t, and the reason for each problem. You can then fix the cause and ask Google to check again.

Google announced the report on 11 July 2022, together with video details in the URL Inspection tool. It is rolling out slowly over the next few months, so you may not see it yet. In this guide I explain how to read the report, what the common issues mean and how I’d fix them.

What Is the Search Console Video Indexing Report?

The Video indexing report is a new report in the Indexing section of Search Console. It only appears if Google has found videos on your site. If you don’t host or embed videos, you won’t see it, and that is normal.

Before this report, you had to guess why a video wasn’t showing in search. You could check the Video rich results report, but that only covered structured data (code that describes your content to Google). It didn’t tell you whether Google had actually indexed the video itself.

The new report answers three questions:

• How many of your pages have a video Google found?
• On which of those pages did Google index the video?
• What is stopping Google from indexing the rest?

It also lets you validate a fix, which means you tell Google you solved a problem and it rechecks the affected pages.

How It Differs From the Video Rich Results Report

This part confuses many people, so it is worth being clear. The Video rich results report (under Enhancements) checks your VideoObject structured data. It tells you if required fields are missing or invalid.

The Video indexing report checks something different: whether the video was indexed at all. A page can have perfect structured data and still have no video indexed. And a page without any structured data can still have its video indexed, because Google can find videos in plain HTML too.

In my experience, many site owners fix every structured data warning and then wonder why nothing changed. The indexing report is where the real answer usually is.

Where to Find the Report and Who Can See It

Open your property in Search Console and look at the left menu under Indexing. You should see a Video pages item next to the main page indexing report (which some accounts still show as Coverage while Google renames it).

If you can’t see it, there are two likely reasons:

1. Google is still rolling the report out. It said the rollout would take several months, so not every property has it yet.
2. Google hasn’t detected any videos on your site. The report only appears when there is something to show.

Any user with access to the property can view it. To validate fixes, you need full or owner access, the same as other indexing reports.

How to Read the Video Indexing Report

The report has the same layout as other Search Console indexing reports. If you have used the Mobile Usability report, it will feel familiar.

The Summary Chart

At the top is a chart over time. It splits your video pages into two groups:

• Video indexed: pages where Google found and indexed a video.
• No video indexed: pages where Google found a video but did not index it.

One important detail: the report counts pages, not videos. If the same video is embedded on 50 pages, it can appear 50 times. And if a page has several videos, it still counts as one page.

The Issues Table

Below the chart is a table that lists why videos on some pages weren’t indexed. Each row is one reason, with the number of affected pages. Click a row to see example URLs.

I always sort this table by the number of pages first. One issue usually explains most of the problem, and it often comes from a single template.

The Indexed Pages List

There is also a view of pages where a video was indexed. This is useful as a check. If a page you care about is missing from it, that tells you to look for it in the issues list.

Video Details in URL Inspection

The URL Inspection tool now has a video section too. For an indexed page, it shows:

• Whether a video was indexed on the page.
• The video URL and thumbnail URL Google found.
• Any issues that blocked indexing.

There is a catch. The live test only tells you whether Google can detect a video on the page. It does not tell you whether the video will be indexed. For the real indexing status, you need the data from the last crawl, not the live test.

Common Video Indexing Issues and How to Fix Them

Below are the issues I’d expect most sites to see, what each one means, and what to do. The exact wording in your report may vary a little, but the causes are the same.

Google Could Not Determine the Prominent Video on the Page

This is the most common one. Google found a video, but it didn’t think the video was the main thing on the page. Google wants to show video results for pages where the video is a clear, important part of the content.

Typical causes:

• The video is small, for example in a sidebar or a footer.
• The video is far down the page, below a lot of text.
• The page has several videos and none of them stands out.
• The video only loads after JavaScript runs, and Google can’t see it clearly in the rendered page.

How to fix it:

1. Decide whether the page should rank as a video result at all. A blog post with a small supporting clip probably shouldn’t.
2. For pages that should, place the video near the top and make it a good size on desktop and mobile.
3. Give each important video its own page, where the video is the main content. I call these watch pages.
4. Check that the video player shows in the rendered HTML using URL Inspection’s live test and the screenshot.

My honest view: you don’t need to fix this on every page. If a video is only there to support the text, being listed under this issue is fine. Focus on the pages where a video result would actually bring visitors.

Cannot Determine Video Position and Size

Google couldn’t work out where the video sits on the page or how big it is. I usually see this with players that open in a lightbox (a pop-up layer over the page) or only load after a click.

To fix it, show the player in the normal page layout with a set width and height. A thumbnail with a play button that swaps in the player after a click can work for users, but Google may not see a real player there.

Unknown Video Format

Google found a video URL but couldn’t recognise the file type. This often happens when the URL in your structured data or Open Graph tags points to a web page, a broken link or an unusual file.

Check that the contentUrl in your structured data points to the actual video file in a supported format, such as MP4, WebM or MOV. If you use a player service, the embedUrl should point to the player. Don’t mix the two up.

Video Not Found on the Hosting Service

Google tried to fetch the video from the platform where it is hosted and couldn’t find it. With YouTube embeds, this usually means the video was deleted or set to private.

Either restore the video, replace the embed with a working one, or remove the embed from the page. I’d also search your site for old embed codes, because dead videos tend to pile up on older posts.

Thumbnail Problems

Google needs a thumbnail image to show a video result. If it can’t fetch or use your thumbnail, and can’t make one itself, the video won’t be indexed.

Check these points:

• The thumbnailUrl in your structured data works and returns an image, not an error page.
• The image is not blocked by robots.txt or behind a login.
• The image is a normal format such as JPEG, PNG or WebP.

The Page Itself Is Not Indexed

This one is simple but easy to forget. Google can only index a video on a page it has indexed. If the page has a noindex tag, a canonical pointing elsewhere or another indexing problem, fix that first in the main page indexing report.

How to Fix and Validate Video Indexing Issues Step by Step

When I work through this report, I follow the same process each time:

1. Pick the biggest issue. Sort the issues table by affected pages and start at the top.
2. Check a few examples. Open three or four example URLs. Look for the shared cause, such as one template, one plugin or one player.
3. Inspect one URL. Use URL Inspection to see the video URL and thumbnail Google found, then run a live test to confirm Google can detect the video.
4. Fix the cause at the source. Change the template, player settings or structured data, not one page at a time.
5. Click Validate Fix. Go back to the issue in the report and start validation. Google will recrawl the affected pages over the next days or weeks.
6. Watch the chart. Pages should move from “No video indexed” to “Video indexed” as Google rechecks them. If validation fails, open the failed examples and look again.

Be patient with validation. It runs on Google’s crawl schedule, so a large site can take a while.

How Google Finds Videos on Your Pages

Understanding how Google finds videos makes the report much easier to read. Google uses a few sources:

• HTML tags: the <video>, <embed>, <iframe> and <object> elements in your page.
• Structured data: VideoObject markup from schema.org.
• Open Graph tags: the og:video tags many sites add for social sharing.
• Video sitemaps: a sitemap that lists your video pages with details about each video.

Because there are several sources, the same video can show up with different URLs. For example, your structured data might use one video URL while your Open Graph tags use another. Keeping them consistent makes life easier for Google and for you when you read the report.

A Simple VideoObject Example

Here is a basic VideoObject block. Google’s core fields are name, description, thumbnailUrl and uploadDate. Adding contentUrl or embedUrl helps Google fetch the video itself.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "VideoObject",
  "name": "How to Repot a Snake Plant",
  "description": "A short step-by-step guide to repotting a snake plant.",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://www.example.com/thumbs/repot-snake-plant.jpg",
  "uploadDate": "2022-07-15",
  "duration": "PT3M20S",
  "contentUrl": "https://www.example.com/video/repot-snake-plant.mp4"
}
</script>

Structured data helps Google understand the video, but it doesn’t force indexing. If the video isn’t prominent on the page, you can still end up with “Google could not determine the prominent video on the page”.

Practical Examples by Site Type

The same report can mean very different things depending on your site. Here is how I’d read it for a few common cases.

Blogs With Embedded YouTube Videos

Most posts use a video as a helper, not the main content. Expect many pages under the prominent video issue. I’d only act on posts where the video is the main point, such as a tutorial. For those, move the video to the top and keep the text supporting it.

Online Stores With Product Videos

Product videos often sit inside an image gallery or a pop-up. That can lead to position and size issues. If you want product videos in search, show at least one in the main page layout. Don’t worry if the product page itself ranks as a normal result rather than a video result; that is often the better outcome for a store.

Course and Video Libraries

Sites built around video should have one watch page per video, with the player at the top. Here I’d aim for almost every page in the “Video indexed” group. A video sitemap is worth adding too, because it helps Google find every watch page.

Mistakes to Avoid With the Video Indexing Report

• Treating every issue as an error. Not every page needs a video result. Some “No video indexed” pages are completely fine.
• Only fixing structured data. Valid markup won’t help if the video isn’t prominent or the file can’t be fetched.
• Blocking video files or thumbnails. Check robots.txt rules for folders like /video/ or /media/. A blocked file means no index.
• Lazy loading that hides the player. If the player only loads on scroll or click, Google may never see it. Check the rendered HTML.
• Trusting the live test too much. The live test confirms detection, not indexing. Wait for the next crawl to see the real result.
• Panicking about a missing report. During the rollout, a missing report doesn’t mean something is wrong with your site.

Is the Video Indexing Report Worth Your Time?

If video is part of how people find you, yes. This is the first time Search Console shows plainly whether your videos are indexed and why not. That alone saves a lot of guessing.

If you only have a few embedded videos as supporting content, I’d check the report once, fix anything broken like dead embeds or blocked thumbnails, and then leave it. I’d spend more time on core pages, content and page experience instead.

I plan to check it monthly on video-heavy sites, the same way I check other indexing reports. Any sudden jump in “No video indexed” usually points to a template or player change that went wrong.

Conclusion

The Search Console Video indexing report finally shows which of your video pages are indexed and what is blocking the rest. Most problems come down to a few causes: the video isn’t the main focus of the page, Google can’t see the player, the file or thumbnail can’t be fetched, or the page itself isn’t indexed.

Your next step: open the report once it reaches your property, pick the issue with the most pages, inspect one example URL and fix the template behind it. Then validate the fix. If you are reviewing your whole site this year, add this report to your SEO checklist for 2022. You can also read Google’s own announcement of the Video indexing report for the official overview.