What is a 301 Redirect and When Do I Use One?

You join an online podcasting community and people keep talking about "301 redirects." What is it and when do you use it? 301 REDIRECTS If you've ever moved, you know you need to fill out a change of address form so any mail that goes to your old...

Show Notes

You join an online podcasting community and people keep talking about "301 redirects." What is it and when do you use it?

301 REDIRECTS

If you've ever moved, you know you need to fill out a change of address form so any mail that goes to your old address forwards to the new address. If you put that into podcasting, it is similar.

A 301 redirect is a "Change of address" for your podcast.

When Do You Use a 301 Redirect in Podcasting?

If you are moving from one media host to the new media host (say moving from Anchor to Libsyn - use the coupon code sopfree at libsyn.com) then you would redirect the old Anchor feed to point at Libsyn.

What Does the Listener Have to Do?

Nothing. The listener doesn't even know any of this happened.

If you were using (fr example ) Apple Podcasts app, when you start it, the app would check your show's old feed and find the change of address (the 301 redirect) and then go to your new host (Libsyn.com). In Libsyn.com there is a "new feed tag" which alerts the app that the next time it is started, it can go directly to Libsyn as the show doesn't live on Anchor anymore.

A Couple Things to Keep In Mind

Be sure to download any stats from the old host as they won't transfer
Download any invoices you might need for your taxes
Don't multi-task when you start setting up a redirect
Moving from one media host to the next won't bring you more downloads (it's the content that does that along with your promotion).