Add a podcast using an RSS feed

To add your podcasts on the Google Play Music Podcast Portal, you need to:

Important: All podcast content needs to follow the Content and Conduct Policies for Podcasts on Google Play.

Here’s how to add your podcast:

Step 1: Create a valid RSS feed with required tags

To add podcasts to the Podcast Portal, you need an RSS feed for each of your podcasts. RSS feeds use a family of standard web formats to publish information that is updated frequently with content and metadata, like episode titles, author names, and descriptions.

If you’ve already published a podcast to iTunes using an RSS feed, you can use many of the same tags when adding a RSS feed on Google Play Music.

Important: Make sure your RSS feed has a valid <googleplay:email> or <itunes:email> tag with an email address that you can access. We use this email address to send you a verification code to verify that you own the podcast. After you've verified ownership of your podcast, you can remove the email address from your RSS feed.

To publish your content, the tags linked below are required for podcasts and episodes:

Note: Password-protected podcasts aren’t supported at this time.

Step 2: Add your podcast
  1. Sign in to the Google Play Music Podcast Portal.
  2. Near the top right, click Add podcast.
  3. Add your podcast’s RSS feed URL.
  4. Click Submit RSS feed.

Your podcast episodes will be ordered in one of the following ways:

  • The <itunes:order> tag: If used, this tag will determine your podcast order (e.g. episode 1 will be at the top of your episode list).
  • Publication time: If you don't use the <itunes:order> tag, the episode with the most recent publication time will be at the top of your list.
Step 3: Verify ownership
  1. After you’ve submitted your RSS feed, review the email address used to verify ownership of your podcast.
    • To verify that you own the podcast content you’re adding, you need to have an email address in the <googleplay:email> or <itunes:email> field of your podcast’s RSS feed.
  2. Click Send verification code.
  3. Check the email account listed for your verification email.
  4. Visit the link included in the email to complete the verification process.

Protected podcasts

Google identifies some podcasts as protected podcasts that require special verification of ownership. If you're adding a protected podcast you need to fill out a short form to verify that you belong to the organization that owns the content. After you complete and submit the form and our team verifies the information, we will send you an email with a verification code to verify ownership of the podcast.

After you receive the verification code, visit the link included in the email to complete the verification process.

Verification form
Step 4: Review process

After you’ve added a podcast, our team reviews each podcast to make sure that it complies with our Podcast Terms of Service and Content and Conduct Policies for Podcasts on Google Play and is correctly labeled.

This review process can take up to five business days. Once your podcast has been reviewed and approved, you’ll receive an email when your podcast is approved for publication and ready to go live.

Reasons for rejection

Podcasts can be rejected for a number of reasons. Some reasons can include:

  • Similar content: Title and author of a podcast are too similar to one that already exists.
  • Ownership: If you can’t confirm ownership of the podcast, your submission can be rejected.
  • Content violations: Podcast content or images violate our Podcast Terms of Service or Content Policies.

If your podcast gets rejected and you have a question for our support team, you can contact us using the form below.

Contact support
Step 5: See your podcast on Google Play Music

After your podcast has been approved, you can find your podcast’s URL on Google Play Music.

  1. Sign in to the Google Play Music Podcast Portal.
  2. Select a podcast.
  3. Under your podcast’s description, your podcast’s URL is listed.

Tags

Here's a list of required and suggested tags for podcasts and episodes.

Important: If your RSS feed includes any <googleplay> tags, you need to add an XML namespace to the <rss> tag at the top of your podcast's RSS file.

  • Example: <rss version="2.0" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0">

Podcast tags

Required podcast tags
Tag Description Example
<title> Name of your podcast <title>Name of your podcast</title>
<googleplay:author> OR <itunes:author> Author of your podcast (up to 255 characters)

If the <googleplay:author> tag isn’t included, <itunes:author> will be used instead.

<googleplay:author> Company or individual name </googleplay:author>

OR

<itunes:author>Company or individual name</itunes:author>
<googleplay:email> OR <itunes:email>

Email address to authenticate podcast ownership (up to 255 characters)

If the <googleplay:email> tag isn’t included, <itunes:email> will be used instead.
(<itunes:email> has to be inside an <itunes:author>tag).

<googleplay:email> youremailaddress@gmail.com </googleplay:email>

OR

<itunes:owner>
<itunes:email> youremailaddress@gmail.com </itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<googleplay:image> OR <itunes:image> OR <image>

Image shown on Google Play Music to identify your podcast (URL can include up to 2048 characters).

The image needs to be:

  • Square
  • Minimum: 600 x 600 pixels
  • Recommended: Between 1200 x 1200 and 7000 x 7000 pixels
    • Note: A podcast needs an image at least 1200 x 1200 pixels in size to be eligible for featuring. If your podcast's image is smaller than 1200 x 1200 pixels, you'll see a warning when adding your podcast.
  • Maximum: 7000 x 7000 pixels
  • JPEG or PNG format

If the <googleplay:image> tag isn’t included, <itunes:image> will be used instead. If the <itunes:image> tag isn’t included, <image> will be used instead.

The image URL must start with http://, https://, or ftp://

<googleplay:image href="http://sample.com/podcasts/image.jpg"/>

OR

<itunes:image href="http://sample.com/podcasts/image.jpg"/>
 
<googleplay:description> OR <itunes:summary> OR <description> Description of your podcast (up to 4000 characters)
 

If the <googleplay:description> tag isn’t included, <itunes:summary> or <description> will be used instead.

<googleplay:description> Description of your podcast </googleplay:description>

OR

<itunes:summary>
Description of your podcast
</itunes:summary>
 
<language>

Language used in your podcast
 

Language values from the ISO 639 list (two-letters, with some possible modifiers like "en-us") can be used.

 <language>fr</language>
Suggested podcast tags
Tag Description Example
<link> Link to an external page for your podcast <link>http://sample.com</link>  
<googleplay:explicit> OR <itunes:explicit> Indicates if your podcast includes explicit content
 

This tag can be a Yes or No value. If the <googleplay:explicit> tag isn’t included, <itunes:explicit> will be used instead. If a tag isn’t included, the content will not be considered explicit.

<googleplay:explicit> No </googleplay:explicit>

OR

<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
<googleplay:category> OR <itunes:category> Specify a category for your podcast. If more than one category is included, only the first category will be used.
 

Important: Categories need to be in English. If a category has an ampersand, you need to properly escape the ampersand (&amp;) as shown in the example.

Here are the categories available on Google Play Music:

  • Arts
  • Business
  • Comedy
  • Education
  • Games & Hobbies
  • Government & Organizations
  • Health
  • Kids & Family
  • Music
  • News & Politics
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Science & Medicine
  • Society & Culture
  • Sports & Recreation
  • TV & Film
  • Technology

<googleplay:category text="Games &amp; Hobbies"/>

OR

<itunes:category text="News &amp; Politics" />

Episode tags

Required episode tags
Tag Description Example
<item> Tags data for single episode
 

At least one complete <item> tag needs to be included in a feed.

 <item> Episode-specific tags </item>
<title> Title of the podcast episode <title>The Beginning</title>
<enclosure> The url parameter specifies where the podcast is available. The length and type parameters are also required. <enclosure url="http://www.examplesite.com/filename.mp3" length="123456" type="audio/x-mp3"/>
<googleplay:description> OR <itunes:summary> OR <description> Description of an episode displayed to users
 

If the <googleplay:description> tag isn’t included, <itunes:summary> will be used instead. If both <googleplay:description> and <itunes:summary> aren’t included, <description> will be used instead.

<googleplay:description>Description of your episode</googleplay:description>

OR

<itunes:summary>Description of your episode</itunes:summary>
Suggested episode tags
Tag Description Example
<guid> Permanent, case-sensitive Globally Unique Identifier for a podcast episode

Each episode needs a GUID. GUIDs are compared to indicate which episodes are new.

If a <guid> tag isn’t included, the <enclosure url> will be used instead.		 <guid>http://www.examplesite.com/filename.mp3</guid>
<pubDate> Publication date shown to users

If a <pubDate> tag isn’t included, the date the feed was crawled may be used instead.		 <pubDate>Wednesday, 04 Feb 2015 00:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<googleplay:explicit> OR <itunes:explicit> Indicates if your podcast episode includes explicit content

This tag can be a <Yes> or <No> value. If the <googleplay:explicit> tag isn’t included, <itunes:explicit> will be used instead. If a tag isn’t included, the content will not be considered explicit.

<googleplay:explicit>No</googleplay:explicit>

OR

<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:order> Specifies the order of your podcast episodes
 		 <itunes:order>1</itunes:order>
<googleplay:block> OR <itunes:block> Block an episode from being published on Google Play.

If the <googleplay:block> or <itunes:block> tag is present with a “yes” value inside an element, the episode won’t be published on Google Play.

<googleplay:block>yes</googleplay:block>

OR

<itunes:block>yes</itunes:block>

Sample podcast RSS feed

Full sample code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<rss xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0" version="2.0">

<channel>

<title>The Unknown Podcast</title>

<link>http://sample.com/podcasts/unknown/index.html</link>

<language>en-us</language>

<copyright>â„— 2025 Unknown Podcaster Corp</copyright>

<googleplay:author>Unannounced Podcaster</googleplay:author>

<googleplay:description>The Unknown Podcast will look at all the things that are unknown or unknowable. Find us on Google Play Music!</googleplay:description>

<description>The Unknown Podcast will look at all the things that are unknown or unknowable.</description>

<googleplay:email>unknown-podcast@sample.com</googleplay:email>

<googleplay:image href="http://sample.com/podcasts/unknown/UnknownLargeImage.jpg" />

<googleplay:category text="Technology"/>

<item>

<title>What's out there?</title>

<googleplay:author>Engima</googleplay:author>

<googleplay:description>We look at all the things that are out there that we'd like to know.</googleplay:description>

<googleplay:image href="http://sample.com/podcasts/unknown/Episode1.jpg" />

<enclosure url="http://sample.com/podcasts/UnknownPodcastEpisode1.mp3" length="2320111" type="audio/mpeg" />

<guid>http://sample.com/podcasts/UnknownPodcastEpisode1.mp3</guid>

<pubDate>Mon, 29 Jun 2015 19:00:00 GMT</pubDate>

</item>

<item>

<title>What can we know, really?</title>

<googleplay:author>The everyman</googleplay:author>

<googleplay:description>And then we follow up on last week's podcast to examine what can and cannot be known.</googleplay:description>

<googleplay:image href="http://sample.com/podcasts/unknown/Episode2.jpg" />

<enclosure url="http://sample.com/podcasts/UnknownPodcastEpisode2.m4a" length="6421543" type="audio/x-m4a" />

<guid>http://sample.com/podcasts/UnknownPodcastEpisode2.m4a</guid>

<pubDate>Mon, 6 Jul 2015 19:00:00 GMT</pubDate>

</item>

</channel>

</rss>

Tag priority

If more than one tag of the same type is found in the RSS feed they will be processed according to their priority. If a matching tag of a given type is found all tags of lower priority are ignored. For example if <googleplay:image> is present in the RSS feed then all <itunes:image> and <image> tags will be ignored without regard for which one appears first.

Here's the full list:

  • <googleplay:author> before <itunes:author>
  • <googleplay:email> before <itunes:email>
  • <googleplay:image> before <itunes:image> before <image>
  • <googleplay:description> before <itunes:summary> before <description>
  • <googleplay:explicit> before <itunes:explicit>
  • <googleplay:block> before <itunes:block>

 

This applies to tags for the whole podcast as well as within a specific episode (item).

Explicit content

If your podcast has explicit content, you need to add the appropriate tag on your podcast’s RSS feed. Podcast owners and representatives are responsible for ensuring that all added content complies with Content and Conduct Policies for Podcasts on Google Play.

Learn more about identifying explicit content

User agent and robots.txt settings

When you add a podcast to the Google Play Music Podcast Portal, you give Google the right to download the RSS feed file and all other files and resources referenced in the feed without respect for the robots.txt settings that may or may not be specified.

Google Play Music will use the user agent 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Google-Podcast)' when accessing the RSS feed file and other resources.

If you want to prevent Google from accessing your podcast feed, you can explicitly block our user agent 'Google-Podcast' on your site’s robots.txt file.

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