Podcast/Blog RSS Feed separation

What is the URL to the podcast feed you’re trying to keep the blog posts out of?

https://thedistillerpodcast.com/feed/

Any posts (episodes attached or not) that you do under the “Posts” section of WordPress will appear in the main WordPress feed. That is by design.

I think what you are trying to achieve would be best using a custom post type, this creates a separate silo (A different menu at the same level as “Posts” or “Pages” on the left) where you would organize your podcast episodes. Creating of the post type itself requires code in your theme’s functions.php or the use of a post type plugin. I personally like the plugin “Custom Post Type UI”, but any plugin that lets you add a post type will work. Make sure the post type meets the requirements listed here: https://create.blubrry.com/resources/powerpress/advanced-tools-and-options/post-type-podcasting/ As an example, create a post type called “Example Show”, slug “example-show”. (Note Do not call the post type “podcast” as it will conflict with podcast features) You can replace “example-show” with the name of your show, and you do not need to use the word “show”, that is just an example”. e.g. “Geek news central” with slug geek-news-central could be used. The post type is the first part of your website Permalink hence a show name helps with SEO just a little bit.

Once you have a custom post type, you then need to create a post type podcast feed. First, enable post type podcasting in PowerPress, main settings page near the bottom under “Advanced Options”, check “Post type podcasting” then click save. Then on the left sub menu select “Post Type Podcasting”, then click add post type podcast feed. Select your post type “Example Show”, then for the podcast feed slug name, try something like “example-feed”, the title can be anything or a more detailed version of your post type title. The end result, your podcast feed will reside at example.com/example-show/example-feed/ and the show’s landing page would be example.

Hope this helps,
Angelo

This seems unnecessarily complicated, and contrary to the entire point of the Category Podcast settings, which make the same process much simpler, and do not require additional plugins. If what you’re telling me is that there’s no way to keep any kind of posts out of the main feed without creating at least one new, custom, feed (that’s what you’re saying, right?) – then it seems (and correct me if I’m wrong) that the problem is simply that my podcast is syndicated from my main RSS feed and not a “category” RSS feed. And that by creating a “podcast” category RSS feed and a “blog” category RSS feed, I could solve the problem without additional post types.

Is that correct?

Then I suppose my question is: how do I change the RSS feed for my podcast without “breaking” the syndication currently set up for iTunes, Google Play, etc. Is changing the RSS feed link on those services as simple as creating the new feed URL and going to each service/platform and updating the link? or is there something additional involved to make sure nothing breaks in the process? I see far too many people saying “one day my podcast feed just stopped working!” to be cavalier about screwing up the feed by making URL changes.

Also – based on your reply I don’t understand what the “Podcast Only Feeds – Enable to separate blog posts from podcast episodes.” toggle accomplishes. Isn’t that supposed to do everything we’re talking about above, with a single click? If not… then what?

Hello @distillerpod,

I am providing an answer for the detail that you stated that you wanted blog posts without podcast episodes in them. If you do not want content to appear as “Posts” then the best solution is to put them else where, aka a separate post type rather than in “Posts”. It is the most ideal solution to this problem, but you can come up with many other ways to solve the problem they just require some other plugin or logic on the back-end to achieve what you want.

You can use category podcasting, but WordPress categories are tied to blog posts and only are meant to be filtering options for posts, they are not meant to segregate posts from appearing in various parts of your website. There may be a plugin that does that but by default in WordPress, blog posts that are in categories still appear in the main blog pages and feed. PowerPress extends the default behavior in WordPress, it doesn’t change the behavior how categories work in WordPress except with giving you options for the podcast feeds themselves, which leads into your last reply.

As for changing your podcast feed, these are specific instructions: https://create.blubrry.com/manual/syndicating-your-podcast-rss-feeds/changing-your-podcast-rss-feed-address-url/ you need a 301 redirect as well as set the iTunes :new-feed-url to the new URL you want Apple to use from that point forward.

Podcast only feeds have only podcast episodes within them, no blog posts. IF you only create podcast episodes on your website, this is irrelevant. If you blog as well as podcast, then all posts (if they have podcast episodes or not) will appear as they should in your main blog’s feed, but your podcast only feed will only have those episodes, no blog posts.

I think you are expecting the opposite behavior of what happens by default. The thing to remember is that podcasting is an extension to blogging, your simply associating media to a blog post. That is why podcasting stacks on top of blogging rather than in the opposite. The most important thing to keep in mind is that podcast directories for the most part do not care about blog posts, submitting the podcast only feed is ideal that way you can maximize the content in the feed. On the opposite token, blog feeds, which are not so meaningful today as they once were, can have a mixture of blog posts and blog posts with media, if the blog reader cannot render the player then its simply viewed as a blog post, no harm no foul.

Thanks,
Angelo

I re-read the thread, I think the problem is you are using the WordPress feed https://thedistillerpodcast.com/feed/ as your podcast feed, when the solution would be to use the podcast only feed PowerPress gives you which is https://thedistillerpodcast.com/feed/podcast/. Sorry if I misinterpreted what you wanted, but at first I thought you didn’t want podcasts to appear in https://thedistillerpodcast.com/feed/.

Simple solution is to use the iTunes:new feed url setting in PowerPress, set it to https://thedistillerpodcast.com/feed/podcast/ then go into Podcasts Connect, update the URL there and within a few days everyone will be picking up the new podcast only feed. You will only have a small group of subscribers using your blog feed, which will not cause much harm.

Thanks,
Angelo

Hi Angelo – thank you, this is exactly what I’m trying to accomplish. I’ve updated the “iTunes:new feed url” setting as you instructed, and updated Podcasts Connect. Not sure what ramifications this is likely to have on spotify, Google Play, etc. But I can login and update those platforms as well. Thank you.

I have a similar issue. I have a podcast (hungryinnashville.com) and a blog with it (hungryinnashvilleblog.com). Because I have two different domains, I can do a separate WordPress installation for each. I also have a subdomain, blog.hungryinnashvile.com) that points, masked to hungryinnashvilleblog.com. The user is unlikely to discover that they have slipped into a separate domain.

I would like to put links on both domains that would allow them to capture RSS links to the blog and the podcast. I’m happy if they’re separate links. My question is whether blog/podcast discovery software would be able to differintiate between a blog or a podcast and whether it would subscribe to one or the other.

Ideas?

If I’m understanding you correctly, you just want to include links from your separate blog and podcast sites on each of those sites, so each site links to both the podcast and blog sites. If that’s the case, there shouldn’t really any problem in doing that.

Thanks for getting back to me.

I’d like to have both links on each website. Since they would both be RSS feeds. I’m wondering if a podcast player would recognize which RSS feed is the podcast and which feed is the blog — vice versa on the blog site.

You’d need to link to the feeds separately and mark one as “blog” and the other as “podcast.” That way, when someone tries to subscribe directly, they’ll know what feed link to use. You can’t just list a bunch of feed URLs with no context and expect that podcasting apps or other services will automatically know which feed is actually the podcast feed.