Switching Podcast Hosts Without Losing Subscribers

We break down exactly how to move your podcast from one hosting platform to another without losing listeners, listings, or momentum. From seamlessly importing your episodes, to placing a redirect, the path is clear and designed for low stress.

If you have questions about transferring your podcast to Buzzsprout, email us at support@buzzsprout.com.

Keep podcasting!

Transcript

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Introduction & Question

Cara Pacetti 0:00

Welcome to Podcasting QA, brought to you by the people at Buzz Pro. I'm your host, Kara Passetti, and I'm bringing you the best tips and strategies to keep you podcasting with confidence. In today's episode, we are answering the question: How do I switch podcast host? To help me answer this question, Kate from our Podcaster Success team is joining me. Kate has been serving our podcasters since February of 2024. She hit the ground running and now plays an integral part in keeping up our help articles. We have many help articles on many different topics, and Kate works really hard to make sure that those are always up to date with the most current information. And so I appreciate her and I'm so glad that she is able to help me answer this question today. So, Kate, thank you so much for being here. Thanks, Kara. I'm so excited to be here. Absolutely. And recently, Kate, you actually updated our help article on transferring podcast hosts. Isn't that right?

Kate Chupp 1:03

Yeah, yeah. So this is kind of top of mind for me. And I'm I'm really excited to talk to our podcasters via a podcast today about it.

Cara Pacetti 1:11

Yes, this is not our norm. We're used to emails in the inbox. And so this is always fun when I get to bring on another podcaster success team member because we get two podcasts. So it's very

How Podcast Hosting Works

Cara Pacetti 1:23

fun. In order to truly understand what it means to transfer from one podcast host to another, I just want to provide a little bit of context around how podcast hosting works and how the directories get the content that you are adding to your podcast host. So if you're brand new to podcasting, you may be a little bit confused by host. Well, wait, I thought I was the podcast host. And so I want to clarify that by saying typically, podcasts are hosted with a podcast host like Buzzsprout. So that's what we are, a podcast host. There's many podcast hosts out there. And what we will do is generate an RSS feed, which is basically a web page full of code and it stores all of your content. So when you add audio files, episode titles, podcast titles, and descriptions, that's all stored in that RSS feed. And then the RSS feed is submitted to the directories like Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio. And what happens is those directories will continuously check this RSS feed for updates. And so as you add new content, that content will be updated across all of the directories where your podcast is listed. And so the benefit here for hosting your podcast with a podcast host is that you only have to make updates one time. So you upload one episode, you edit one description, hit publish, that content will be reflected across all of the directories that are pulling from that RSS feed. I hope that that makes sense. Kate, does that kind of paint a picture of how this process works? Yeah, that's great. Okay, so with that context, now the process of transferring host is hopefully going to make a little more sense.

Copying Episodes To a New Host

Cara Pacetti 3:07

Kate, can you walk us through that first step of getting all of your content moved over from your existing host to your new host, which is hopefully BuzzBrout?

Kate Chupp 3:17

Yeah, I would love to. Okay, so the first step will be that we take your old RSS feed and we will copy over two episodes into BuzzRout. This process just lets you check out the platform, make sure that BuzzBrout's the right fit for you, and just see how your episodes look.

Cara Pacetti 3:33

Awesome. So you're only bringing over two episodes. Meanwhile, your existing RSS feed is still listed on the directories and still providing your content. Is that right? That's right.

Kate Chupp 3:43

Yeah. When you're ready to make the move to BuzzSprout, what you'll want to do is upgrade to one of our paid plans. And then this allows us to copy over the remaining episodes from your RSS feed. So whether you have four episodes or you have 400 episodes, we'll be able to copy over all of them into BuzzSprout.

Cara Pacetti 3:59

Yeah. And this process literally takes minutes. I I know we've seen this in the support inbox and it can seem a little overwhelming, but I've seen, like Kate said, 400 episodes and within five minutes, they're all over copied into BuzzSprout. So we would try to make it really easy for you.

Kate Chupp 4:16

Yes. Something that we recommend in this process too is to make sure that you have backed up all of the episodes from your old podcast host and like save those to your computer or a device just to make sure that you have those saved. It's always great to have like a backup copy of all your episodes.

Cara Pacetti 4:32

That's a great point, Kate. You definitely want to save all of your work, especially you work so hard on it. You don't want to lose that content. Another thing that is worth backing up during this process are your stats. We cannot grab your stats from your previous host. Actually, no podcast host can transfer stats. So, Kate, how do we handle that during this process?

Kate Chupp 4:54

So, even though there are no podcast hosts that can share podcast stats, we have a way in Buzzsprout for you to manually import all the stats from your previous podcast host. So you can make sure that we're still celebrating all of those milestones that you've already achieved. After you've copied your episodes into Buzzsprout, you'll see a link to manually add your stats from your old podcast host. And so you'll want to make sure that you have gone and saved or downloaded all of the analytics from your old host. And then you can click that link in BuzzSprout and upload all of your previous download numbers.

Cara Pacetti 5:26

Absolutely. If you've done all that hard work before getting here, we want to acknowledge that and make sure you're getting all of the credit for that. So that's a great point and a very important step in transferring hosts. So now our podcaster has created a BuzzSprout account and moved to a paid plan. They have imported or copied all of their existing episodes into their BuzzSprout account and even moved over some stats by using that manual link that you mentioned. But the problem here is that we have one RSS feed on BuzzSprout and another RSS feed hosted with a previous podcast host. So essentially two podcasts.

Redirecting Your RSS Feed

Cara Pacetti 6:00

So, Kate, what are the next steps to get the directories to start pulling from the brand new BuzzSprout hosted RSS feed?

Kate Chupp 6:08

Yeah, so this process is called redirecting. It's helpful to think about your RSS feeds like a home address. And so right now we're in the process of moving and we're setting up basically like a fording address. So you can make sure your mail gets from your old home address to your new home address. This process will make sure that the directories check for your changes and the new episodes that you publish and your Buzzsprout address. So you get to keep all of your existing listings and your followers and your ratings and reviews. They'll just update with all the new changes that you make in Buzzsprout.

Cara Pacetti 6:41

That's important to note that this really is all occurring on the back end. And the reason that this process is set up this way is so that there's no interruption to your existing listings. So the listeners aren't going to know that you've even moved. It'll be business as usual. They'll see new episodes as you publish them. That's the goal here is that we can just seamlessly help you move and there's never an interruption to your existing listing.

Kate Chupp 7:07

So what you'll need for this process is your new BuzzBrow RSS feed. And we'll provide that in your account under the directories page, and you'll see an RSS tab there. And that will be your new home address, your new RSS feed. So once you grab that RSS feed from BuzzBrowl, you're gonna actually head to your old podcast host and place a redirect on that old feed that points to this new BuzzBrowl RSS feed. This process varies from host to host. Sometimes there'll be a setting where you can add the redirect directly from your old podcast host. Sometimes you might need to reach out to the support team from your old podcast host to place the redirect for you.

Cara Pacetti 7:46

That's so helpful because I do know from experience, it is not a one size fits all. The directions for one podcast host is not usually the same as the next. Now, once all of those steps are completed, is it just automatic and now the directories will see that? Or what do you recommend for when to cancel the original hosting account?

Kate Chupp 8:07

Yeah, great question. So this is the point where we become your new podcast hosts. And so after you place the redirect, you're gonna want to start posting all of your new episodes in BuzzSprout and um making changes in BuzzSprout, and those will show on your listings. But we recommend keeping your old hosting account active for about two to three weeks to make sure that the directories have time to learn and to see this new RSS feed. Absolutely.

Cara Pacetti 8:32

So if you have questions about transferring podcast hosts, Kate and I are eager to answer those questions for you, as well as the rest of the podcaster success team. And so you can reach us by emailing support at buzzsprout.com with any question you have. Kate, thank you so much for explaining this. It was a treat to have you here with me. And if you have questions you'd like to see answered on a future podcasting QA episode, just click the send us a text link in the show notes. We'd love to have that question answered on a future episode. Be sure to join us every Monday to kickstart your week. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, keep podcasting.