1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,800 [MUSIC] 2 00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:14,460 Welcome to Podcast Answers, the show where I help you start and 3 00:00:14,460 --> 00:00:19,200 grow your podcast answering any podcasting questions along the way. 4 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:20,800 Welcome back. 5 00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:26,680 Last week, we talked a little bit about rebranding and renaming your podcast. 6 00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:29,480 But what if you want to move podcast hosts? 7 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:33,320 Today, that's what we're talking about moving podcast host, what's involved with it. 8 00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:38,320 But first, if you've not joined our community, now is the time to do it. 9 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:41,200 Podcastanswers.com/discord. 10 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:45,280 We'll get you where you can join with other people and chat about podcasting. 11 00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:46,600 That's our Discord server. 12 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:50,400 And we really love being able to chat with you guys. 13 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:55,360 So if you want to talk to me about podcasting, that is the place to do it. 14 00:00:55,800 --> 00:01:02,640 And you can talk with other podcasters because what's better than podcasting alone podcasting with a community. 15 00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:10,240 So join podcast answers dot com slash discord and join others as they talk about podcasting. 16 00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:16,920 So that's right. Last week we talked a little bit about branding and how to re-rand your podcast. 17 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:21,280 But what if you want to re to move your podcast to a different host? 18 00:01:21,960 --> 00:01:28,680 That happens because sometimes you have another you in the the scheme of things podcasts hosts 19 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:33,880 have been around for a while and sometimes new ones come on the scene and you want to have 20 00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:40,920 some of the new features that they have. I mean podcasting 2.0 again is a thing that is is happening. 21 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:47,560 It's something that you it's caught having a lot new features and some hosts don't support those 22 00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:54,160 new features yet. And so podcasts, some, some hosts do support those features. And so if 23 00:01:54,160 --> 00:01:58,720 you want to get onto a podcast host that supports those features or just in general, aren't 24 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:04,560 happy with your podcast host. A lot of times when we start podcasting, we don't know podcast 25 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:12,400 host A from podcast host B. And so we just pick one based on, you know, word on the internet 26 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:17,360 or who we're learning how to podcast from, but we don't really know how to, how to podcast 27 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:23,720 And so we do, we just pick whoever, whatever podcast host our friends tell us about. 28 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:29,760 And so if you went to move podcast host, it's fairly easy, but there are some things 29 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:35,880 that you need to know first, some things that you need to actually have your knowledge on 30 00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:38,120 as far as your particular podcast. 31 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:44,840 What feed to podcast host and directory or sorry, podcast directories have for you. 32 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:49,880 Is it, you know, is it, is it what, you know, because you could be hosting in power press, 33 00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:55,720 you could be creating your feed in power press or your host, your host could be actually providing 34 00:02:55,720 --> 00:03:00,040 that feed for you. You need to know where that feed is created and what directories, 35 00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:07,400 you know, Apple podcasts, Spotify, etc. What podcasts feed that they have for you. 36 00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:16,520 Another thing you need to know is do you use something like podcast mirror to mirror your podcast feed? 37 00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:19,080 Because if you do, this is going to be a separate process. 38 00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:24,280 It's actually going to be a little bit easier if you have podcast mirror than if you don't, 39 00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:26,840 because there's just one setting to change in there. 40 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:29,880 So here's how you do it. 41 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:32,520 You sign up for your new podcast host. That's really easy, right? 42 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:34,840 You decide which podcast host you're going to go to. 43 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:38,360 And I personally, I like 44 00:03:39,240 --> 00:03:44,440 I like Captivate. Captivate is a good podcast host and that's the one I use. And if you want to try 45 00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:48,600 it out, it's podcastanthers.com/captivate will get you there. You don't have to, but that's just one 46 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:57,320 I use. So you sign up for your new podcast host. And then what do you do? Well, most podcast hosts 47 00:03:57,320 --> 00:04:03,400 are going to ask when you sign up, if you already have a podcast. If you do, you just need to simply 48 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:11,560 put in that feed. Now, they're not asking for things like what your Apple podcast is, your 49 00:04:11,560 --> 00:04:17,560 Apple podcast listing is. You're actually looking for your RSS feed, and that's something that you 50 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:23,000 can get from their current host, but you put that in there. And then what they will do is they'll 51 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:27,560 actually go and get all of your media files for you and create your episodes for you. So, 52 00:04:27,560 --> 00:04:33,320 if I sign up for Captivate, and I did this actually within the last year, I switched from 53 00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:36,880 podcast host a to podcast host, captivate. 54 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:41,040 And what I did when I signed up with captivate is I just put it in my RSS feed 55 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:43,680 and they went out there, they went out to my feed. 56 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:51,760 They downloaded each podcast, uh, MP3 and as well as the title and show notes 57 00:04:51,760 --> 00:04:55,360 for each one and they created that they replicated that on their site. 58 00:04:55,360 --> 00:05:00,280 Now, one thing to note and most podcasts hosts are going to do this for you, 59 00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:03,880 But you're going to want to have the episode, 60 00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:05,600 GUID the same. 61 00:05:05,600 --> 00:05:11,960 So each episode that you produce has what's called a GUID or a unique, 62 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,280 I, a globally unique identifier for that particular podcast. 63 00:05:16,280 --> 00:05:21,600 And why this is important is because that's how podcast players know what 64 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:24,680 to consider an episode for you. 65 00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:27,680 So it could be anything, but as long as it's globally unique. 66 00:05:27,680 --> 00:05:31,960 And a lot of times podcast hosts, when you create your episodes or they will, 67 00:05:31,960 --> 00:05:33,720 they'll create a good for that episode. 68 00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:36,920 And it's going to be unique for that episode globally. 69 00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:43,160 Now, one thing, again, what you have to have is you have to have those stay the same. 70 00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:47,440 So your new podcast host needs to, to when they create your new episodes 71 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:51,520 that you're pulling from your old host, use that same good. 72 00:05:51,520 --> 00:05:54,520 Because if you don't, then everyone is going to download your episodes, 73 00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:59,980 like all of your episodes again, because even though it's the same, even though it's technically 74 00:05:59,980 --> 00:06:04,140 the same show, they're going to see it and go, Oh, it's a different GUID. That means it's 75 00:06:04,140 --> 00:06:07,780 a different episode. It's a new episode. So it's obviously new. I'm going to download 76 00:06:07,780 --> 00:06:16,860 all 67 episodes of your podcast or whatever, however many episodes you have. So that's 77 00:06:16,860 --> 00:06:20,380 one thing to note is, are they going to create the same GUIDs? Because if they do, that's 78 00:06:20,380 --> 00:06:29,180 important. You need to have that. Now, you need to have put in a 301 redirect in your old feed. 79 00:06:29,180 --> 00:06:36,620 Some podcast hosts have that ability right in their GUI, in their zero interface. So you can go 80 00:06:36,620 --> 00:06:41,820 in and say, "Hey, I want to redirect to this new feed." And sometimes you're going to have to actually 81 00:06:41,820 --> 00:06:46,460 contact them and have them tell them, "Hey, I'm moving away from your service, but I need you to 82 00:06:46,460 --> 00:06:51,460 to put in a 301 redirect for me. 83 00:06:51,460 --> 00:06:56,500 A 301 redirect is simply a specific kind of redirect. 84 00:06:56,500 --> 00:07:04,780 So think of it if you go to something like podcastanswers.com/captivate. 85 00:07:04,780 --> 00:07:09,060 What that does is that actually redirects you to the captivate site. 86 00:07:09,060 --> 00:07:11,900 It redirects you there and that's a redirect. 87 00:07:11,900 --> 00:07:16,100 Now you need to do that in your feed, but there's several different kinds of redirects. 88 00:07:16,100 --> 00:07:24,100 One, the 301 tells the whatever is getting your feed, "Hey, I am no longer going to be 89 00:07:24,100 --> 00:07:27,100 here at this address, so you need to update your bookmarks. 90 00:07:27,100 --> 00:07:30,100 You need to update what you're going to pull to this new address." 91 00:07:30,100 --> 00:07:35,500 A 302 redirect just basically says, "Hey, I'm temporarily not going to be here. 92 00:07:35,500 --> 00:07:38,140 I'll be back, but I'm not fully going to be gone. 93 00:07:38,140 --> 00:07:39,620 I'm just temporarily going to be gone." 94 00:07:39,620 --> 00:07:45,100 So you do need to have a 301 redirect because 301s are going to be what you need to get 95 00:07:45,100 --> 00:07:52,380 all of your, what happens is when, when, let's say Apple podcasts checks your feed next time 96 00:07:52,380 --> 00:07:59,900 they see 301 redirect and it redirects them to podcast host B new podcast host B.com/ 97 00:07:59,900 --> 00:08:05,340 whatever your feed is. It's going to say, I know that this, I don't want to look to this old feed 98 00:08:05,340 --> 00:08:12,620 anymore because I have a 301 redirect. So I need to look always from now on to this new podcast 99 00:08:12,620 --> 00:08:19,020 host for this feed and no longer look at the old podcast. So this is how you get all of 100 00:08:19,020 --> 00:08:24,860 your people who are subscribed to you to continue saying subscribe to you, even though they are 101 00:08:24,860 --> 00:08:29,580 now using the new feed because every time they check, they're going to say, Oh, 301 redirect. 102 00:08:29,580 --> 00:08:33,180 Let's go ahead and update where we're checking to the new one. 103 00:08:33,180 --> 00:08:37,580 So you'll still keep all of the people that are subscribed to your podcast episodes. That's 104 00:08:37,580 --> 00:08:42,860 really, really, and really important. Now, the other thing that's really, really important 105 00:08:42,860 --> 00:08:48,860 is you need to keep that 301 redirect around for, I would say a month. It's probably not 106 00:08:48,860 --> 00:08:53,420 any, you don't probably need to do it any longer than a month, but a month is probably 107 00:08:53,420 --> 00:08:58,940 going to be sufficient to have everybody check your podcast feed and update. You know, some 108 00:08:58,940 --> 00:09:03,260 of them take a little bit longer to update, especially if you've not published a episode. 109 00:09:03,260 --> 00:09:07,100 So I would suggest keeping your old feet around for a month. 110 00:09:07,100 --> 00:09:11,260 And so you'll need to continue to paying for your old podcast host for one month 111 00:09:11,260 --> 00:09:16,700 because as soon as you get rid of your your account with them, they're going to delete the 301. 112 00:09:16,700 --> 00:09:21,980 So you don't want to do that. You want to keep that 301 around for at least a month. 113 00:09:21,980 --> 00:09:26,940 And then you can go ahead and get rid of your old podcast host because most people 114 00:09:26,940 --> 00:09:32,540 will be up to date by that time. And but I would also suggest publishing an episode two 115 00:09:32,540 --> 00:09:37,660 because a lot of times, sometimes when, and I don't know that this is the case necessarily 116 00:09:37,660 --> 00:09:41,900 with a 301 redirect, but I do know if you rebrand your podcast, sometimes you need to 117 00:09:41,900 --> 00:09:46,360 go ahead and publish an episode before they'll actually update it because they may see the 118 00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:50,820 name has changed, but sometimes whoever's generating your RSS feed doesn't update the 119 00:09:50,820 --> 00:09:55,440 last updated time to a newer time. And so sometimes people don't actually check and 120 00:09:55,440 --> 00:10:00,900 get new data because they see that that time is old. So I would suggest publishing a new 121 00:10:00,900 --> 00:10:06,100 episode, even, even though I don't think you need to necessarily for moving your podcast 122 00:10:06,100 --> 00:10:11,300 host, but I would, I would go ahead and do that. I would, I would keep your old podcast 123 00:10:11,300 --> 00:10:15,540 around for feed for around for one month, but then I would also go ahead, like I said, 124 00:10:15,540 --> 00:10:22,460 and, and have them be really publishing new episode as soon as you move to your new feed 125 00:10:22,460 --> 00:10:27,260 host. That way you also know which feed people are getting to, because you see if, if a podcast 126 00:10:27,260 --> 00:10:31,880 directory like Spotify doesn't update, doesn't get your new episode, then you know that they 127 00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:35,960 have not updated to the new location because they're still looking for the old location 128 00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:40,560 because they've not seen the new episode that you published. So now I did mention in the 129 00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:44,480 beginning here, if you have something like podcast mirror, and these aren't the only 130 00:10:44,480 --> 00:10:49,760 services there's several, several other services that do mirroring of your feed. But the reason 131 00:10:49,760 --> 00:10:54,000 you would use that is cause a couple of different reasons. Let's say you're, you're publishing 132 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:58,480 on your own, with your own WordPress, like I do. I use WordPress and my own podcast 133 00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:05,720 or my own host to host my website, host my feed. I don't keep the mp3 files there, but 134 00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:13,960 I keep my feed there. And so I don't want thousands of people hitting my website because 135 00:11:13,960 --> 00:11:18,120 my website host isn't dedicated for that, isn't specifically, it's not dedicated as 136 00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:19,560 as a podcast host. 137 00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:22,640 And so it's not necessarily set up to hit, 138 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:25,920 have that many people hit it that often to check your feed. 139 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:30,440 And so what I use is I use something called podcast mirror. 140 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,960 And what they do is they actually check my feed 141 00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:35,760 once every 20 minutes or so, 142 00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:37,440 and see if I've published anything new. 143 00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:39,720 But then I take their feed that they give me, 144 00:11:39,720 --> 00:11:41,240 'cause they just essentially mirror it. 145 00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:43,640 Like that's what podcast mirror is. 146 00:11:43,640 --> 00:11:45,520 They mirror my feed. 147 00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:50,520 And so there, I submit my podcast mirror feed 148 00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:52,840 to all of the directories and everything 149 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:54,960 because they check podcast mirror, 150 00:11:54,960 --> 00:11:57,640 podcast mirror has the infrastructure set up 151 00:11:57,640 --> 00:11:59,960 to take all of those people hitting your podcast 152 00:11:59,960 --> 00:12:03,360 and not, you know, not, it's not gonna take them down. 153 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:06,880 And so they have the infrastructure set up for that, 154 00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:11,440 whereas my cheap web host doesn't necessarily have that. 155 00:12:11,440 --> 00:12:14,720 So essentially I have one person checking my feed, 156 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:20,400 podcast mirror every 20 minutes. And then if I update something, they update their copy. 157 00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:26,720 And so they have a copy and then all of the directories are actually choosing podcast mirror 158 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:32,720 as what they're looking at. And so if you have, if you're using podcast mirror, this is really 159 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:36,880 easy to move podcast host. Again, you're going to want to keep your GUIDs the same because again, 160 00:12:36,880 --> 00:12:41,520 if you, if it, if your new podcast host doesn't keep your GUIDs the same, those are going to change 161 00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:45,760 no matter what, because it's just a mirror copy. But the nice thing about podcast mirror 162 00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:53,280 is it allows you to take that feed that you're checking because you tell them in their back end 163 00:12:53,280 --> 00:12:57,840 what your feed is. All you have to do is update that and then they point to the new one. 164 00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:04,560 So it's really easy because you can just switch it there. You don't have to worry about 301 165 00:13:04,560 --> 00:13:09,680 redirects or anything like that. You can just quit your old podcast host once you've got the new 166 00:13:09,680 --> 00:13:16,200 media files and a new RSS feed up somewhere and point your podcast mirror out to that 167 00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:21,280 new feed. And it's all good to go. You don't need to keep the 301 redirect. You can immediately 168 00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:28,800 get rid of your old podcast toast. So that's why I like doing that. But guys, this is, 169 00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:34,080 this is easy, but if done wrong, this could be an extinction event for your podcast. 170 00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:38,640 You could lose all of your listeners, all of your subscribers. If you don't do this 171 00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:44,240 It's an easy thing as long as you do it and you do it right, but you put the wrong thing in a 301 redirect 172 00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:48,640 That could be a problem because then you end up having to go to different places because they are 173 00:13:48,640 --> 00:13:52,680 They're looking at a different feed that doesn't even exist now if you put the wrong thing in there 174 00:13:52,680 --> 00:13:55,520 So you don't want to put the wrong thing in the 301 redirect 175 00:13:55,520 --> 00:14:00,500 So it's an easy but again you don't want to 176 00:14:00,500 --> 00:14:06,240 Have an extinction event for your podcast if this is done right no one will even know the difference 177 00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:10,160 No one will know that you've changed podcast host unless they're a geek and they're looking 178 00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:15,840 at the RSS feed and see that your URLs for your episodes have changed. 179 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:21,320 But I am available guys for one-on-one consulting if this is too hard for you, because again, 180 00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:26,920 this is definitely can be hard and I'm available for one-on-one consulting and you can reach 181 00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:29,520 me at podcastanswers.com/contact. 182 00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:33,960 That is the way to get ahold of me because that is where I'm at. 183 00:14:33,960 --> 00:14:40,840 So guys, this podcast is value for value. This is a value for value podcast. If you get any 184 00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:47,640 value out of this podcast, we ask that you return your time, talent or treasure back 185 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:52,920 in the form of value. And I can't do this podcast without your support. If you wish to 186 00:14:52,920 --> 00:14:58,320 give your treasure, you can do that by listening in the new podcasting app and you can boost 187 00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:06,320 us. Give us a big giant boost. You can do that. That'll help out. It's at podcastanswers.com/boost. 188 00:15:06,320 --> 00:15:12,480 That'll take you to the new podcast app, so allow you to boost or you can donate a one-time gift 189 00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:19,760 or become a monthly supporter at Buy Me a Coffee. And that can be found at podcastanswers.com/buymeacoffee. 190 00:15:19,760 --> 00:15:28,160 Guys, until next week, have a great week and keep podcasting.