How to prepare my RSS feed before importing to Transistor?

What are the steps involved in moving to Transistor?

The podcast migration process has two important steps:

Podcast Import. This brings a copy of your existing content over to your Transistor account.
Podcast Redirect. The redirect tells any app or subscriber that is still using your old feed where your podcast has moved to.

How can I prepare my RSS feed before I import it to Transistor?

Display your email address in your RSS feed - When you start the import process the first thing we do is send a verification email to the owner of the podcast. We use the email address that is present in the <itunes:email> tag of your RSS feed. Your previous host may hide your email address for privacy purposes, so you may need to ask them to display it in the feed for you. If you're not sure, we can check this for you, just reach out to our Live Chat.

Check on the Locked status - Podcasts have a locked status to prevent them from being imported to other hosts without the creator’s permission. Check with your old host or search for the </podcast:locked> tag in your feed and see if it says Yes or No. You’ll need to set the status to No in your old host settings before you can import it to Transistor.

Check all episodes are in your RSS feed - Some podcast hosts limit the number of episodes they show in the RSS feed. We need all of your episodes to be in the feed, so that we can import them. Check with your old host that all episodes are present in the feed. If you are checking your feed yourself, search for the <item> tag. The number of <item> tags in the feed is how many episodes are present in your feed. That number needs to match your total number of episodes.

Remove any Dynamic Adverts - We need to import a clean copy of your audio that is free from any dynamic advertising, announcements or extra audio snippets. Turn off any ads in your old host before starting your import.

Check each episode has a Publish Date - Make sure each of your episodes has a date, that it is a valid date format, is set in the past and there are no blank dates. Search for the <pubDate> tag in your feed and skip through each episode to check the date.

Advanced: How to view the contents of your RSS feed before importing it?

If you want to check the contents of your RSS feed for yourself you can use a tool like XML Feed Viewer.

Visit the XML Feed Viewer website
Click the URL button
Copy and paste the RSS feed into the URL window and press Submit
To search within the feed, click into the text of the feed on the left side
Use Ctrl + F to open the search bar and search for a tag like <item> or <itunes:email>
Use the < > buttons to navigate between the found tags in your feed.

Podcast Redirection

Once your feed has been imported successfully, it's then time to redirect your old feed. Your old feed is likely still in use in a lot of places and the redirect links your old feed and new feed together.

Podcast directories and subscribers need to be pointed to the new place your podcast is hosted. Most podcast hosts provide a free redirection service, even after you have deleted your account with them.

We have some guides to help you setup your redirect. Choose your previous host from this Podcast Hosting platforms list to find the right redirect guide for your host.

Here are some of our most popular redirect guides:

Captivate - How to setup a 301 redirect
Libsyn - Configuring a 301 redirect
Podbean - Setting up a 301 redirect
Anchor - Switch away with a 301 redirect
Buzzsprout - Apply a 301 redirect

Updated on: 05/09/2024