Podcast RSS feed hygiene: a checklist for podcasters

Your RSS feed is the single source of truth for your podcast. Every app and directory that lists your show reads it, copies what it needs, and trusts what it says. When the feed is clean, your show looks right everywhere and new episodes appear quickly. When it is messy, you get duplicate episodes, missing artwork, wrong dates, shows filed under the wrong language, and episodes that never show up at all.

Most podcasters never look at their feed; the hosting platform generates it. That is fine until something goes wrong, usually after a host migration, a bulk edit or a template change. This checklist covers what a healthy feed looks like, what commonly breaks and how to check. It is written from the perspective of a podcast search engine, podsearch.org, which parses millions of feeds from the open Podcast Index catalog and sees every kind of feed problem.

How to look at your feed

Find your feed URL in your hosting platform's settings (often labelled "RSS feed" or "Distribution"). Open it in a browser. You will see XML: a <channel> with show details, then one <item> per episode. You do not need to read all of it; this checklist tells you what to look for.

Then run it through a podcast feed validator. Several free validators exist, and many hosting platforms include one. Validate after every significant change.

The channel: show-level checklist

1. Title

• Your real show name, consistent with your artwork and website.
• No keyword stuffing ("Best Business Podcast Marketing Sales Leadership Tips"). Directories may penalize it and listeners distrust it.
• Escape special characters. An unescaped & is one of the most common causes of invalid XML; your host should write &.

2. Description

• A plain-language summary of what the show is about, who it is for and how often it publishes.
• Front-load the important words; many apps truncate descriptions.
• Avoid pasting HTML that breaks; keep formatting simple.

3. Artwork

• A square image at the size directories require; 3000 × 3000 pixels is a common target. Check your main directories' current requirements.
• JPEG or PNG, reasonably compressed, served over HTTPS.
• The artwork URL should be stable. If you change artwork, use a new file name so caches refresh.

4. Language

• The <language> tag with a correct code, such as en, en-us, es or pt-br.
• This is how listeners filtering by language find you. A missing or wrong code can hide you from them. A surprising number of non-English shows declare en because it was the template default.

5. Categories

• Choose the most specific category and subcategory that genuinely fit.
• Do not pick a popular category that does not fit; listeners browsing it will skip you, and you will be harder to find in the right one.

6. Explicit flag

• Set it honestly. Mark explicit if episodes contain explicit content. Listeners using family or safe modes rely on it, and directories may act on misrepresentation.

7. Owner and author

• Author: the name listeners know you by.
• Owner name and email: used by directories to verify ownership. Use an address you check, ideally a role address you can keep if people change. Remember that this email is visible to anyone who reads your feed, including data services that compile publicly listed contacts.

8. Website link

• A working link to your show's website or page. Directories and listeners use it, and it helps search engines connect your show and site.

9. Podcast 2.0 identity tags

• <podcast:guid>: a permanent unique ID for your show, which survives host migrations. Many hosts generate it; check that yours does and that it never changes.
• <podcast:locked>: set to yes to tell other hosting platforms not to import your feed without verification, which protects against someone moving your show without permission.
• <podcast:podping usesPodping="true"/> if your host sends Podping notifications.

The items: episode-level checklist

10. Stable, unique GUIDs

This is the most important rule in this article. Each episode's <guid> must be unique and must never change.

Directories use the GUID to decide whether an item is a new episode or an update to an existing one. If GUIDs change, every app thinks your whole back catalog is new: listeners get flooded with "new" episodes, download counts get messy, and search engines show duplicates. GUID changes most often happen during host migrations and when a template uses the episode URL as the GUID and the URL structure changes.

When migrating, make sure your new host imports and preserves the old GUIDs.

11. Correct publish dates

• <pubDate> in the standard RSS date format, with a time zone.
• Dates should reflect when the episode was first published. Re-dating old episodes to today, or bulk-resetting dates during migration, pushes old episodes to the top of "new" lists and confuses anyone sorting by date.
• Avoid future dates unless your host handles scheduled publishing correctly.

12. Enclosure

• An <enclosure> with the audio (or video) URL, correct MIME type (such as audio/mpeg) and file length in bytes.
• HTTPS URLs that do not expire. Signed URLs that expire after hours will break playback in apps that cache feeds.
• Each episode should have its own file. Reusing one URL for different episodes breaks caching and statistics.

13. Episode titles

• Specific and descriptive: "How we cut our grocery bill in half" beats "Episode 47".
• Put the guest's name in the title for interviews. It is one of the most searched things in podcasting.
• Use <itunes:episode> and <itunes:season> for numbering rather than stuffing numbers into the start of every title.

14. Show notes

• A clear first paragraph saying what the episode covers, then details, links and timestamps.
• Name guests, companies, books and places you discuss. Search engines index show notes, so these words make the episode findable.
• Keep sponsor reads short in the notes and clearly marked.

15. Duration and episode type

• <itunes:duration> with a correct length.
• <itunes:episodeType> (full, trailer or bonus) so apps treat trailers and bonuses correctly.

16. Podcast 2.0 extras

• <podcast:transcript> linking to a transcript file, ideally in a timed format such as VTT or SRT, so search engines can index your spoken words.
• <podcast:chapters> linking to a JSON chapters file.
• <podcast:person> for hosts and guests.
• <podcast:soundbite> for a highlight clip.

Our Podcast 2.0 tags guide explains each one.

Feed-level health

17. Speed and availability

Directories poll your feed regularly. If it is slow or often unavailable, polls fail and new episodes are delayed. Reputable hosts handle this; self-hosters should use caching and a CDN.

18. Size

Very large feeds, with thousands of episodes and long HTML notes, can be slow to fetch and parse. Some hosts let you limit the number of items in the public feed. If you trim old episodes, understand that some apps will drop them from your listing.

19. Conditional requests

Your server should support ETag and Last-Modified headers so pollers can ask "has this changed?" and receive a short "not modified" answer. This saves bandwidth for everyone and lets directories poll more often. Most hosting platforms do this already.

20. Notifications

Ask your host whether it sends Podping notifications on publish. With Podping, services such as podsearch.org can re-poll your feed within seconds to minutes instead of waiting for the next scheduled check. See Podping explained.

Migrations: the riskiest moment

Moving hosts is when most feed problems happen. A safe migration:

1. Pick a host that preserves GUIDs, dates and enclosure details on import.
2. Import, then compare the new feed with the old one: same number of items, same GUIDs, same dates.
3. Redirect the old feed with a permanent HTTP 301 redirect to the new URL. Ask your old host how; most support it.
4. Add <itunes:new-feed-url> to the old feed pointing to the new one, for directories that use it.
5. Keep the redirect in place for as long as you can, ideally permanently. Some apps check old URLs rarely.
6. Keep your <podcast:guid> unchanged so services that use it recognize the move.
7. Check major directories a few days later to confirm they show the new feed's latest episode.

A quick self-audit

Once a quarter, spend 15 minutes on this:

What broken feeds look like from the outside

Feed problems rarely announce themselves. These symptoms, reported by listeners or seen in your statistics, usually trace back to a specific feed issue:

When you see a symptom, fix the cause in your host, validate the feed, and give directories time to re-poll. With Podping, services that watch it will pick up the corrected feed quickly; others will on their next scheduled check.

Self-hosting notes

If you generate your own feed rather than using a host, a few extra responsibilities fall on you. Serve the feed with the correct content type (application/rss+xml or application/xml), support conditional requests, compress responses, and keep the file at a permanent URL. Generate GUIDs once and store them; never derive them from something that can change, such as a title. And consider sending Podping notifications yourself on publish, following the Podping project's documentation.

Working with your host

You do not have to fix feed problems alone. Hosting platforms see the same issues across thousands of shows and usually have documentation or support for each. When you contact them, include your feed URL, the episode affected, what you expected and what happened, and the validator output if there is one. Ask specifically whether they preserve GUIDs on import, support conditional requests, send Podping notifications and publish Podcast 2.0 tags such as transcripts and person tags. Their answers tell you a lot about how seriously they take feed quality, which is a fair criterion when you choose where to host your show.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most common podcast feed problem?

Changing episode GUIDs, usually during migrations, followed by invalid XML from unescaped characters and wrong dates.

Does my feed need Podcast 2.0 tags?

They are optional but valuable. Transcripts make your episodes searchable by what you said; a permanent podcast GUID protects your identity across hosts; Podping speeds up indexing.

Is my owner email public?

Yes. Anything in your RSS feed can be read by anyone with the feed URL, including apps, directories and data services. Use an address you are comfortable sharing publicly.

How do I stop someone else from moving my feed to another host?

Set <podcast:locked>yes</podcast:locked> in your feed, ideally with an owner email, which signals to platforms that support it that imports need verification.

My new episode is not showing up. What should I check?

Confirm it is in your feed with a unique GUID, a correct date and a working enclosure, validate the feed, and check whether your host sends Podping. If all is well, it is likely waiting for the next poll.

How often should I validate my feed?

After any template change, migration or bulk edit, and as part of a quarterly self-audit.

Summary

A healthy feed is one that tells the truth consistently: a clear title and description, the right language and category, honest explicit flags, stable GUIDs, correct dates, reliable enclosures, specific episode titles and useful show notes, plus Podcast 2.0 tags where you can. Validate after changes, migrate carefully with redirects, and ask your host about Podping. Your listeners will never see your feed, but they will notice when it is right.