<b>Image sitemap: the exact rules</b>

<b>Image sitemap: the exact rules</b>

Image sitemaps surface images Google can't find via crawl (lazy-loaded, JS-injected, CSS backgrounds).

Rules:
— ✅ Max 1,000 <code>&lt;image:image&gt;</code> entries per page URL.
— ✅ Images nest under the page <code>&lt;url&gt;</code> that displays them, not standalone.
— ✅ Use the <code>http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1</code> namespace.
— ✅ Image URLs must be on a domain you can verify (or use cross-submission).

What to include:
Step 1 — List only content images (product shots, infographics), not icons/spacers/logos.
Step 2 — Point to the canonical image URL, not a CDN variant that 302s.
Step 3 — Confirm each image returns 200 with an image MIME type.

Definition of done: every listed image loads, is content-relevant, and sits under the page it appears on.