How to Submit Your podcast to Google Podcasts: The step-by-step guide

Released on June 18, 2018, Google Podcasts has become one of the most popular podcast listening apps across the globe.

Since the launch, it has enabled users to access to their podcasts across multiple devices and platforms.

Let us have a look at the process to submit your podcast to Google Podcasts.

If you want to upload your podcast to iTuens then you can read out post How to Upload / Publish Podcast To iTunes / Apple Podcasts : 5 Step Process

Why it is important to Submit Your podcast to Google Podcasts?

BuzzSprout, Captivate, Transistor, Simplecast, Podbean and Castos are some of the leading podcast hosting platforms. But Google Podcast due to its impeccable sync with Google Play and Music services provides the most preferred platform.

If you have already hosted your podcast in some other platform, there is no need to worry as Podcast from any platform can easily be migrated to Google Podcasts.

The Podcasts app is integrated with Google Assistant, meaning you can search for and play podcasts wherever you have Assistant enabled. The company will sync your place in a podcast across all Google products, so if you listen to half a podcast on your way home from work, you can resume it on your Google Home once you’re back at the house.

Google Podcasts looks familiar to anyone who has used a podcast app before. It lets you search for new podcasts, download them, and play them at your convenience.

Google’s recommendation algorithm does a very good job at finding the right podcast for you based on your listening habits.

Podcasts have become an important part of everyday life for millions of active listeners and there is no better way to reach them than Google Podcasts app.

Features of Google Podcasts

With Google Podcasts, you can find and listen to the world’s podcasts for free.

Discover podcasts you’ll love

• Subscribe and listen to all your favorite podcasts.
• Explore show and episode recommendations just for you.
• Browse popular and trending shows in comedy, news, sports, and more.

Customize your listening experience

• Listen at faster playback speeds or skip over silences.
• Queue up episodes for a seamless listening experience.
• Easily keep track of your listening history, downloads, and subscriptions.

Listen wherever you are

• Listen on multiple devices – phone, laptop, smart speaker – without losing your place.
• Auto-download shows to listen offline and on the go.
• Discover podcasts using Google Search and Google Assistant

How to Submit Your podcast to Google Podcasts: All the Steps

Submitting your podcast to Google Podcasts is fairly simple. Generally, Google will do it for you, however you will need to check, verify and correct a few things if required.

Step 1: Use Google Podcast Publisher Tools to check if google has already found your podcast.

Go to https://www.google.com/devtools/podcast/preview

Google Podcasts is having a unique crawl and search mechanism which finds your podcast and includes it automatically in the Google Podcast App. In the link provided above, you are required to enter the URL of the podcast which you have already published on some other platform.

In the second box, you are supposed to enter the RSS Feed of the podcast published by you. After entering the values on any of the boxes, click on the “Generate” Button. If Google Podcast has appended your podcast in its database, you will get a link which you can share with your audience.

If your podcast is not indexed in Google Podcasts, you will receive a message “This RSS Feed is currently not indexed in Google Podcasts”. In such cases, follow the next steps.

There is also a link to check how your podcast will look in google search results.

Step 2: Verify whether the platform on which you have published your Podcast is compatible with Google Podcasts or not

To do this, you have to go through the Google Podcasts Guidelines at https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/podcast#guidelines

Your previously published Podcasts must be compatible to and comply with all regulations as per Google Webmaster Guidelines as well.

Step 3: Register the RSS Feed URL of your already published Podcast with Google

Use the Google Search Console to register the RSS Feed of your already published Podcast. Your hosting website must be compatible with Google Podcasts and must be linked with your RSS Feed. Your RSS Feed must be valid and conforming to RSS 2.0 specifications with all required tags relevant to your podcast.

If your podcast is published on Captivate or any other similar platform, you have to raise a ticket by logging into your account and take help of the support team to submit your website to Google Podcasts.

In case you fail to submit your website to Google, you can submit your podcast to Google Play Music in the following way –

1. Verify the information in your Captivate account in the three fields required by Google. It was already done by you when you had signed up for your Captivate account.
2. Go to https://play.google.com/music/podcasts/portal/ and click on “Get Started”.
3. In the login section, enter your Google credentials.
4. Click on “Add a Podcast”.
5. Enter the RSS Feeds URL of your podcasts which you can find in Captivate under Directories>RSS Feed. Click “Submit RSS Feed”.
6. Google will mail you a code for the purpose of verification of ownership of your Google account. In case of your possession of a Gmail Account, your RSS Feed URL will be automatically verified.  
7. Click on “Publish Podcast” and Google Play will automatically send your notifications as soon as your Podcast comes live.

Step 4: Give sometime to Google to index your RSS Feed URL

If Google fails to index your RSS Feed in the first step, you have to follow the next steps and wait for a few days till your podcast gets indexed in Google.

Although it is done within few hours but in case you don’t receive any notification within a week, you should understand that your website is not compatible with Google Podcasts.

 Keep a note that your podcast must be in .mp3 or .m4a format.

How Many listeners you reach when you Submit Your podcast to Google Podcasts

With more than 80 % of world mobile phones powered by Android operating system and more than 1.7 Billion users you have a potential to reach most of them when you submit your podcast to Google Podcasts.

This coupled with the built in search and recommendation algorithm of Google, gives you enormous opportunity to reach a large audience, especially if you are at the beginning stage of your podcasting career.

Summery

To sum up, the most important criteria of your podcast to get on Google Podcasts is its compatibility with Google Podcasts guidelines and Webmasters Guidelines.

Your website must be in compliance with Google protocols of Podcast publication.

Google Podcast crawlers generally indexes the RSS Feed automatically, but in case it fails, follow Step 2, 3 and 4 and your podcast will be active, at least on Google Play Music.

If it doesn’t gets migrated even after following these steps, then take for sure that your website is not at all compatible with Google Guidelines. In all other cases, verify the validity of your RSS Feed in compliance with RSS 2.0 standards, output format of your podcast and compatibility of your website with Google podcasts.