RSS <CHANNEL> TAGS
<channel> Your Podcast
<title> The Name of your podcast
<pubDate> – Most recent date that an item was published to your RSS feed
<generator> the tool/place used to make your feed (ex. Libsyn, blubrry).
<link> typically to your website. Be sure to set this
<language> The language of your podcast
<copyright> your name, brand, etc, year.
<docs> A url that points to the documentation of the RSS format used in the feed. (help file very 2002)
<managingEditor> Email address for individual responsible for editorial content
<image> The image element supplies a graphical logo for the feed (sometimes called the feed image)
<url> URL of image www.yourwebsite.com/logo.jpg
<title> Again, your show’s name (a human-readable description of the image)
<link> again probably your website.
<description> Describe your podcast here.
ITUNES <CHANNEL> Level Tags
<itunes:summary> Show’s description. Allows up to 2k characters. Not searchable in Apple Podcasts, is searchable in Google Play Music
<itunes:author> Host/s name. Searchable. Don’t stuff it with keywords.
<itunes:keywords> No longer used by Apple. Other catcher might use it like TuneIn.
<itunes:category> Top-level category for your podcast.
<itunes:category> Sub-category to the main cat. selected above.
</itunes:category> 2nd main category for your podcast.
</itunes:category> Sub-category to the 2nd main cat. Selected
- “Podcasts with category information appear in more places on the iTunes Store and are more likely to be found by users.” – Apple Podcasts
<itunes:image> Show’s artwork with same specs.
<itunes:explicit> Select clean or explicit.
- Explicit can prevent your show from certain countries (17 at this time).
- On 8/17/17, 8 out of the top 10 in iTunes had clarified their explicit tag. 2 had this tag missing.
<itunes:owner> The show’s contact information.
<itunes:name> Show’s person to contact.
<itunes:email> include an email address that you check.
<itunes:subtitle> Short description of your show. Displays on iTunes desktop. Other catchers (Overcast & TuneIn) index this info.
<itunes:block> Used to hide a podcast from the iTunes/Apple Podcasts directory
<itunes:type> New tag! Choose episodic or serial.
- Episodic is what we’re use to (newest to oldest), listen to the episodes in any order. This will be the default type. This episodic type can have seasons. When selected, newest to oldest will be displayed and downloaded.
- Serial is the new type that allows us to arrange our episodes from oldest to newest. This type will be popular used for storytelling and series formatted podcasts like Inside Psycho, You Must Remember This and Serial. The season option is available. When selected, oldest to newest will be displayed and downloaded.
<ITEM> Tags (podcast episodes)
<title> The title from your publishing platform, default episode title
<itunes:title> Optional. Title-only override, must not contain season or episode numbers or show name
<pubDate> Publication date of the episode. By default, podcast apps will sort based on this
<guid> “globally unique identifier” is how podcast apps know whether they’ve downloaded this episode before. This must NEVER change, especially if you move podcast hosts or switch domains or change to HTTPS. Only time to change this is if you must force a redownload
<link> The link to the episode post. Some podcast hosts will default to their own website, but you can change this permalink
<itunes:image> Optional. Episode-level image, currently displays in Apple Podcasts searches, but not yet plays. Displays in other apps, like Spreaker, Pocket Casts, but not Overcast
<description> A short description of your episode. This will be used if <itunes:summary> is missing
<content:encoded> The full show notes
<enclosure length type> The URL, byte size, and type of your media file
<itunes:duration> Length of the episode in H:M:SS
<itunes:explicit> Content advisory tag, “clean” for appropriate for children, “yes” for heavy profanity or adult-only topics. Omit this tag for PG-level content. This is only necessary if different from the show-level tag. Remember that a single explicit episode will remove your podcast from Apple Podcasts in 17 countries.
<itunes:block> Blocks an individual episode from appear in the public Apple Podcasts catalog, but it does not prevent the episode from being downloaded. Helpful for when you have a single explicit episode you don’t want to get you kicked out of 17 Apple Podcasts countries
<itunes:keywords> Deprecated by Apple, but some platforms actually still use this
<itunes:subtitle> Displays only in iTunes in episode listings
<itunes:summary> One- or two-sentence summary of the episode, displays when pressing (i) button in iTunes, displays in iOS 11 along with title and show notes (512 characters(?) in Libsyn)
<itunes:episode> Episode number (numbers only)
<itunes:episodeType> Episode type: “full,” “trailer,” or “bonus”
<itunes:author> Episode-specific author tag, is searched in Apple Podcasts, could be used to list episode-specific guests or proper nouns
<itunes:order> Sets the playback order number of this episode
RSS Feed Resources
Get the RSS Feed of an iTunes Podcast: reganstarr.com/get-rss-feed-for-itunes-podcast
Validate and Visualize Your Podcast RSS Feed: castfeedvalidator.com
