Change the RSS feed URL
Depending on the status of your original podcast RSS feed URL, you have two options to change it — in Apple Podcasts Connect or through the server where your feed is hosted.
If you use a third-party hosting solution
Most major third-party hosting providers can help you migrate your RSS feed to a different URL by implementing a redirect. This way, you don’t need to perform additional actions in Apple Podcasts Connect as it’s all handled by your hosting provider. Learn more about what to consider when changing your hosting provider.
If you host your own RSS feed
If you don’t use a third-party podcast hosting solution and you directly edit or maintain the original RSS feed, follow the steps below. This ensures that your existing followers (even those outside of Apple Podcasts) are seamlessly migrated and are not affected by this process:
- Set the web server where your feed is hosted to return an HTTP 301 redirect response when it receives a request for the old feed.
- Use the
<itunes:new-feed-url>tag in your new feed to point to the new URL. This response updates Apple Podcasts with the new feed URL and your subscribers continue to receive new episodes automatically.
Important: Don’t set the <itunes:new-feed-url> tag to the Mirror URL listed in Apple Podcasts Connect.
Contact your web server’s support teams for further assistance.
To ensure followers receive your most recent episodes from the new feed URL, maintain the <itunes:new-feed-url> tag and 301 redirect response for at least four weeks.
Warning: Make sure the original episode GUIDs are maintained and don’t change. Altering the GUID may result in duplicate episodes being shown to listeners, misrepresentation of data in Analytics, and may ultimately affect your show’s status on Apple Podcasts.
What’s an episode GUID?
Each episode in your podcast has a globally unique identifier (GUID). It’s very important that each episode has a unique, alphanumeric GUID that never changes, even if an episode’s metadata, like title or enclosure URL, do change.
If a GUID is not provided, an episode’s enclosure URL will be used instead. In this case, make sure that an episode’s enclosure URL is also unique and never changes.