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Google Podcasts Manager users can now upload their podcasts to YouTube with RSS upload. Learn more here

Help Google Podcasts find your show

Get your podcast indexed by Google

Your podcast RSS feed and homepage must be found by Google in order to appear on Google Podcasts.

Prerequisites

  • Your podcast must have at least one episode in order to be found and added to Google Podcasts.
  • Google must be able to reach your RSS feed and episode audio files (and linked homepage, if you have one) in order to be indexed. The feed and page cannot require a password or be blocked to Google in any other way. The easiest way to test this is to visit these URLs in an incognito browser window.
  • If this is a custom feed--that is, a feed that is not accessible to Google because it requires an access token or is blocked for any other reason--then you can't get it on Google Podcasts. You must share the feed URL directly with your listeners.

Get your podcast found by Google

  1. See if your podcast is already known to Google:
    1. Open Google Podcasts.
    2. Search for your podcast. If you find your podcast listed in Google Podcasts, there's nothing more to do (unless you think that Google Podcasts is using the wrong feed.
  2. If your podcast is not yet on Google Podcasts, use one of the following methods to help Google find your podcast:
    Method Description
    Publish using your podcast hosting service If you are using a hosting service, they probably handle publishing your show to Google Podcasts. Search for "publish my show" or "publish my episode" in your user documentation.
    Podcasts Manager verification Verify ownership of your show in Podcasts Manager. It's free, easy, and will also give you access to listening analytics such as listener retention graphs that show listen counts for any time within an episode to show episode times when listeners skip, stop, or play multiple times.
    PubSubHubbub Use the PubSubHubbub website (or API) to publish your podcast. On the website, enter the feed URL under Publish > Topic URL and click Publish
    Homepage crawl If you have linked your homepage to your RSS feed correctly, Google will follow the link and find your feed. You can either wait for Google to find and crawl your associated homepage through natural means, or you can explicitly request indexing of your homepage using Search Console.
  3. It can take up to six days after a successful publishing request for your show to appear on Google. Check on Google Podcasts (step 1) a few days after publishing to see if you're there.

 

Once your podcast is found by Google, Google will check it for updates several times a day. In most cases, this should be frequent enough that you don't need to do anything else. You can monitor your show's status as described below.

Monitor your feed's crawling status (advanced users)

To see the last time your podcast feed was viewed by Google:

  1. Open the Google PubSubHubbub site.
  2. In the Publisher Diagnostics section, enter your feed URL in the Topic URL text box.
  3. Click Get Info to see the results of Google's last visit to your feed:
    • Last successful fetch: The last time Google successfully retrieved your feed. Note that this means only that Google could access your feed. It does not describe whether the feed was valid or not (there might be syntax errors).
    • Last ping: The last time you used PubSubHubbub to ask Google to read your RSS feed.
    • Last fetch error: The last error Google encountered when trying to retrieve your file.
  4. Ideally:
    • Last successful fetch should be more recent than your most recent file update. If not, wait an hour and check again. If the last successful fetch still hasn't changed:
      • If there has been an unsuccessful fetch during that time (check the Last fetch error time), look at Last fetch error and fix the problem.
      • If there have been no fetches, either successful or unsuccessful, since you last checked, enter the feed URL in Publish > Topic URL on the Google PubSubHubbub landing page. then click Publish.

 

You can use the PubSubHubbub API to request or retrieve indexing information programmatically, rather than visiting the PubSubHubbub site in your browser.

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