There are some changes to be aware of in Podland. Google states, “To best help listeners discover new podcasts on Google, Google will start enforcing new requirements for podcast RSS feeds to be eligible to appear in recommendations on Google Podcasts and other Google surfaces. These requirements will go into place on September 21st. If your podcast does not meet these requirements, it will still be available on Google, but not eligible for recommendation”.

You can read the official release here. All or most of the requirements are already required by Apple Podcasts anyway; except a requirement that <link> needs to be a valid URL to your podcast’s website.

According to the Podcast Index, only 5.8% of podcasts currently don’t have a valid website link. They’ll still work in Google Podcasts - they just won’t be recommended.

Edison Research has released the Top 50 US Podcasts by audience size for Q2 2021. Joe Rogan is still #1, The Daily is #2, and Crime Junkie #3. The data is compiled by asking participants what podcasts they listened to in the past week, rather than raw download figures, and should measure everyone. In terms of hosts, Megaphone (14), NPR (8) and Omny Studio (8) host the most shows.

Apple Podcasts had some issues last month. Podtrac has highlighted how the Apple Podcasts bug affected US traffic in July resulting in a 31% drop in downloads from the app. The company suggests that traffic during much of August will still be affected. Podtrac also reported a significant drop in news podcast downloads since the end of the US election cycle back in February 2020.

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