How can I redirect iTunes to a new podcast RSS feed?
May 14, 2010 9:09 AM   Subscribe

My website's podcast needs to change the RSS feed URL that iTunes picks up. How can I redirect iTunes to the new feed? I don't want to lose our current subscribers during the changeover.
posted by Servo5678 to Computers & Internet (8 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
You can use an HTTP redirect. Do you control the server where the old RSS feed is?
posted by domnit at 9:21 AM on May 14, 2010


Response by poster: No, I don't have that level of control. It's a TypePad blog.
posted by Servo5678 at 9:23 AM on May 14, 2010


You need to add the tag to your feed. This will update all your iTunes clients that support podcasting.

To serve anyone not using iTunes to access your feed, you'll need to add a 301 redirect to your httpd.conf. Something like:

Redirect 301 /oldpodcast.xml /newpodcast.xml

For thoroughness, Apple recomends implementing both types of redirect.

Additional information available here:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html#changing

I did this a couple of months ago (just the 301, though). We lost no subscribers.

posted by word_virus at 9:36 AM on May 14, 2010


Grr. The tag is 'itunes:new-feed-url' (in brackets). That'll teach me to just glance over the preview....
posted by word_virus at 9:37 AM on May 14, 2010


Yet another way is to change the contents of the file at the old address to
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<redirect>
<newlocation>http://www.example.com/path/to/feed.xml</newlocation>
</redirect>

posted by adamrice at 10:12 AM on May 14, 2010


Response by poster: word_virus, that looks just like what I need. Would that work if I manually added it to a blog entry that the current feed picks up? My RSS feeds are auto-generated by TypePad based on blog posts, so I can't get at the feed directly.

Note that the old RSS feed will still exist for browsers to use (as it's the main site's RSS feed), but we need a new iTunes feed in order to prevent episodes from "falling" off of the feed after a day or three.
posted by Servo5678 at 10:22 AM on May 14, 2010


Servo5678, unfortunately I don't have any Typepad experience so I can't speak to whether that would work or not. Have you tried contacting Typepad/SixApart directly?
posted by word_virus at 10:44 AM on May 14, 2010


Response by poster: word_virus, they don't seem to understand the problem.
posted by Servo5678 at 10:49 AM on May 14, 2010


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