Moving Your Podcast? Here’s How Not to Mess It Up!

Dave Jackson
00:00:00.800 - 00:00:11.280
Oh, I've seen this so many times now that I'm just going to tell you I can look into my crystal ball and I'm going to save you a giant headache when it comes to domains.

Announcer
00:00:12.960 - 00:00:37.180
Welcome to your podcast consultant. Small lessons with big value.

With more than a decade of experience and millions of downloads, this hall of fame podcaster is a featured speaker, author, and mentor to thousands. Now, he wants to work with you. He's your podcast consultant, Dave Jackson.

Dave Jackson
00:00:38.140 - 00:07:39.490
All right, I'm going to try not to get too nerdy, but we're going to get kind of nerdy today. But let's just start off with what is an RSS feed? If this was radio, your RSS feed is your signal, you know, your 97.5, your 100.7, whatever it is.

And you tell all the apps, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, I heart, whoever, hey, I'm at 97.5. And so they tune in now, later, if you switch from one media host to another.

So let's say you move from Spotify because they're awful to Captivate because they're amazing. Well, on Spotify you were 97.5. Now on Captivate you're 100.7. So you have to put in what's called a redirect if we want to get really nerdy.

A 301 redirect to say, hey, it's like a change of address. So when the apps, you fire up Apple podcasts and it goes, hey, Dave doesn't live here anymore. He's over there at 100.7.

And the audience doesn't even know. That's an easy one. But what happens sometimes is you want a website for your podcast.

And so hopefully you bought a domain, somebody from like Namecheap or cooler websites, and you pointed it at your media host's website because you're like, I don't really need a full website yet. Not even sure if I want a podcast. Don't want to spend a lot of money, want to keep it simple. Totally understand that.

But I am here to tell you I worked at Libsyn for eight years, been building websites since the 90s, and I'm here to tell you, you're going to outgrow that website. Unless you're like Mrs. Jenkins, sixth grade podcasting class, you're going to outgrow the website that comes with your media host again.

That's going to be Captivate, Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Blubrry, any of those. Right? And they're not bad websites. They just do. They're very, very, very simple.

It's a great place to be found and a place to listen and a place to follow.

And I've seen this over and over and over where people like, oh, so the problem is you pointed your domain at your media host and so let's say your domain is Dave's website.com and now your feed that, that you know your frequency is daveswebsite.com feed. Okay, great. Well, now you say I am moving from my built in website from my media host to an actual web host. So you're gonna move to PodPage.

That's where I work PodPage now that's where I work. But maybe WordPress at cooler websites. Whatever you're doing, but you're going to move.

Now the problem is you have to point that domain and say, I don't live over there anymore, I live over there at this new web host. When you do that, your feed, Remember your signal 97.5 is tied to that.

So when you say, hey, don't point at that website, point at this website thing, you break your podcast, you completely. Just shatter it to pieces.

So number one, if you are going to point your domain at your media host website when it comes time to submit your show to Apple and Spotify and all the other places, see if you can get what I call the raw RSS feed, the one that's not using your domain. So this would be something like, you know, Dave's website.libsyn.com feed. It'll have something to do with the media host name in it.

And the reason for that is later, if you want to leave that media host as a website, you can keep them like, hey, I love them as a media host, but I'm going to use somebody else for the, the actual pretty website. Your feed is not included, it's not in the domain.

And so that's something that I saw at Libsyn when I worked there and somebody would want to change their domain and I would go, wait a minute, you're going to break your show. Now if you've done this, you're like, wait, I'm pointing my domain at my media host website.

There are ways around it and you just want to get the tech support people involved so you don't break your show. And if you're moving to PodPage, it's really easy because when you change the domain, there's that website address.

Let's say you know your website.com feed that doesn't exist anymore. Well, we can recreate it and Kind of do that change of address and say, hey, you're looking for this? It doesn't exist anymore.

Here, look at the new media host. If you're changing host. Now, I realize in an audio podcast this is probably buku confusing. I'm trying to keep it simple.

I'm trying to get that theater of the mind going with radio. But just realize if you're changing your domain, if you're changing your media host, work with the media host.

Or if you want to contact me, you can do that too. But work with the media host.

Even if you're saying, hey, I'm leaving you guys for your competitor, most media host, I know they're like, hey, it happens, not a big deal. And they will make sure that you can move without losing your show. Why?

Because if you don't like the new media host, they want you to come back to them. But it is one of those things that can get a little confusing. But I see it over and over and over. So in general, Again, unless you're Mrs.

Jenkins sixth grade class, get yourself a website because that way you don't have to move later. Have you ever moved even?

I remember one time I lived in an apartment and I was in this apartment here on the left and there was about, I don't know, 30 yards of grass and there was another apartment and I moved from there to there. I just literally had to walk across half the parking lot to get to my new apartment.

And anytime you slice it, when you have to pick up everything you own and move it, it's no fun. And it's the same thing with moving a podcast. It's not the end of the world. It's a little bit of a pain in the butt.

And in the end you're like, ah, you know what, I should have just started here. So it's something to keep in mind. And so if you need any help with this, you know where to find me.

If you like, hey, Dave, I'm doing something with my domain or hey, I'm, I'm moving to a new media host because I started with Spotify and they're awful, then you can always contact me and I'll make sure you're not shooting yourself in the foot again. The website is podcastconsultant.com for this show. Now, if you want unlimited coaching, well, do I have the website for you?

That is schoolofpodcasting.com. it comes with unlimited one on one consulting.

It also has an amazing community and of course step by step courses to walk you through planning launching, growing, and if you want to monetize your show, I'm Dave Jackson. I help podcasters. It's what I do, it's what I love to do, and I can't wait to see what we're gonna do.