Oct 13, 2020

How to Optimize Podcasts for Google

Google Search continues to be an important and growing discovery mechanism for podcasts. Podcasters always ask us about how to optimize podcasts for Search, and while the guidance is similar for all surfaces where users listen to podcasts, there are a few things we wanted to call out that are particularly important for Search: 
  1. Include detailed show and episode metadata: The show description and episode descriptions help us deliver more accurate search results and provide users with more context on the contents of an episode. Of course, follow general best practices for adding useful and relevant descriptions.
  2. Make sure your podcast’s webpage and RSS data match: If you have a web page for your podcast, make sure the following data match the data in the RSS:
    1. The title of the podcast show’s webpage and the title of the RSS feed match.
    2. The HEAD element of the podcasts show’s webpage contains a ‘link rel’ element that points to the RSS feed, and that the RSS feed in turn contains a <channel><link> element whose value matches the URL of the show’s webpage More details here.
  3. Include cover art: We recently changed our guidelines to make cover art images in  your podcast feed required, rather than optional. More details are here.
  4. Allow Googlebot to access your audio files: We recommend making sure that your audio files, the actual mp3s within your RSS feed, are able to be crawled and accessible to Googlebot. While this is recommended and not required, if we can crawl your audio files, it allows our technology to use these files to understand the entirety of the podcast. This allows us to surface this podcast to users for a broader range of topics, as we understand the full context of the episode, and aren’t limited to the description. More details are here.
Follow general Search best practices: Our podcast algorithms are very much rooted in the same principles of Search, so familiarizing yourself with How Search Works can provide you with valuable insights.

Google Podcasts team
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