Help listeners find your show

Overview

Once Google has found your show, it can appear in Google Search results, on Google Podcasts, and in many other places. Here are some tips to help listeners find and subscribe to your show.

• Improve your performance in Search
• Share a link to your show
• Add a branded Google Podcasts badge

Improve your performance in Search

Many listeners search for podcasts using Google Search or the search function within Google Podcasts. Here are some tips to help listeners find your show:

1. Include detailed show and episode descriptions. The show description and episode description help us deliver more accurate search results and provide listeners with more context on the contents of an episode, so provide full and accurate descriptions. (Be sure not to add irrelevant keywords just to improve your clicks.)
2. If you have a web page for your podcast (highly recommended):
   • Follow Search best practices for your webpage, as well as general best practices for adding useful and relevant titles and descriptions.
   • Ensure that the title of the podcast appears in the text of the show's homepage.
   • Ensure that the homepage and RSS feed point to each other.
3. Allow Google to access your episode audio files. If Google can crawl your audio files, we can understand the full context of the episode and surface this podcast to listeners for a broader range of topics, rather than relying solely on the show or episode description.
   • Use an audio format that Google can crawl.
   • Make sure that Google can access your audio files. Visit the URL of the audio files in an incognito browser window; if you can reach the file, then Google should be able to as well.
4. Our podcast search algorithms are based on the same principles as web search, so familiarizing yourself with How Search Works can provide you with valuable insights about optimizing your podcast titles and descriptions.

Note that custom feeds are not findable on Google or Google Podcasts platforms.

Share a link to your show or episode in Google Podcasts

You can directly share links to your show on Google Podcasts. We recommend adding a Google Podcasts badge to your show's homepage, and linking it to your show or episode.

Here is how to find the link for your show or episode:

Show link

If you use Google Podcasts Manager, you can get a show link and badge from within Podcasts Manager.

1. Open Google Podcasts.
2. Search for your podcast.
3. Click into the search result for your podcast.
4. Copy the URL from your browser.

Episode link

1. Open Google Podcasts.
2. Search for your podcast or episode.
3. When you find your episode, click into the episode result.
4. Copy the URL from your browser.

Custom feed

A custom feed (also known as a private feed) is a feed that is blocked from Google Podcasts because it requires a login, has a <block> tag, or is blocked to Google using some other mechanism. The feed URL therefore must be shared directly with listeners.

If you have a custom feed, here is how to generate the subscription link to use for Google Podcasts listeners:

1. First, you must Base64URL-encode your private feed URL:
   1. Visit base64encode.org
   2. Paste your private feed URL in the entry field.
   3. Check Perform URL safe encoding.
   4. Click ENCODE
   5. Copy the Base64URL-formatted output to use in the next step.
2. Copy the output from step 1 into the end of the following URL where indicated:
   https://podcasts.google.com/subscribe-by-rss-feed?feed=<base64URL_output>
3. Test your link in your browser. It should take you to a subscription page for your show in Google Podcasts.
4. Provide the URL from step 2 to Google Podcasts app listeners who want to subscribe to your custom feed.

Note that Google Podcasts cannot notify custom feed listeners when new episodes are available, or enable auto-download of episodes on Google Podcasts apps.

Add a Google Podcasts badge and link

Add a subscribe on Google Podcasts link and badge to your web pages. This provides a one-click solution for listeners to subscribe to your show on Google Podcasts. Learn how