A magnetooptical recording medium is described having a substrate, a seed layer structure having at least two layers including a first layer formed on the substrate and having amorphous ITO and having a thickness of greater than 20 nm but less than 200 nm; and a polycrystalline metal layer formed directly on the first layer having a thickness of 0.2-3.2 nm. The recording medium further includes a recording multilayer of alternate layers of platinum and cobalt or palladium and cobalt alloy deposited onto the said seed layer structure, whereby the said seed layer structure is selected to improve the coercivity and squareness of the recording multilayer.