How can we change the category for our Podcast?

Question

Level 1

22 points

How can we change the category for our Podcast?

We want out podcast to be in the "Automotive" category. It is a subcategory of "Games & Hobbies". So, as per the documentation we used this in our feed:

    <itunes:category text="Games &amp; Hobbies">
      <itunes:category text="Automotive" />
    </itunes:category>

However, after we submitted our feed, we ended up in the "Games & Hobbies" category. You can find our page here: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/caradvice/id1109927633

After looking at some other feeds we modified ours to remove the reference to "Games & Hobbies" and we just have:

<itunes:category text="Automotive" />

However after requesting a refresh of the feed and waiting for it to be "active", the category has not changed. We made an update to the description at the same time as the category change. The description has been updated but the category has not.

How can we go about changing the category for our feed?

Posted on May 2, 2016 5:35 PM

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Answer 1

May 2, 2016 11:28 PM in response to CarAdvice

'Automotive' is a sub-category, not a category, and you cannot use it as a category. What you originally had is the only way to get 'Automotive' to show.

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Answer 2

CarAdvice Author

Level 1

22 points

May 3, 2016 1:23 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Thanks for the reply Roger.

Unfortunately after we used the first method, it put us into the "Games & Hobbies" category which is not what we want. When we look at other Automotive podcasts they are able to be directly listed in Automotive, such as CarTalk: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/npr-car-talk-podcast/id253191823

If you look at their page, you will see the following, which is their category is listed as 'Automotive':

Ours, however, only says Games & Hobbies which you can see here:

When we look at their feed here http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510208 they just have "Automotive" listed on it's own, like we changed it to in ours.

Do you know how we can achieve the same result?

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Answer 3

May 3, 2016 1:33 AM in response to CarAdvice

If it worked for them I don't know why it doesn't work for you - unless it's just that you haven't allowed the Store time to catch up. Remember that it usually takes 1-2 days for changes to appear in the Store and it's possible that minor changes like this won't show until there is a new episode.

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Answer 4

CarAdvice Author

Level 1

22 points

May 9, 2016 1:05 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Hi Roger,

I've waited a few days and we've even added a new episode but it hasn't changed. What do you advise we do?

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Answer 5

May 12, 2016 7:17 PM in response to CarAdvice

The NPR podcast only shows as 'Automotive' in the web page version the Store: in the Store itself within iTunes is shows as 'Games & Hobbies > Automotive' - even that is a little odd as their feed reads

<itunes:category text="Games & Hobbies"/>

<itunes:category text="Comedy"/>

<itunes:category text="Automotive"/>

Probably the Store has defaulted to 'Automotive' because it's a sub-category. (It doesn't show 'Comedy' because it only shows the first category.)

You could try a version of what they've got, removing the 'Comedy' category, but I don't see you removing 'Games & Hobbies' from the Store page within iTunes.

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Answer 6

CarAdvice Author

Level 1

22 points

May 12, 2016 7:22 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Thanks Roger. It is now working.

So to clarify for anyone else having this problem. The page here: http://lists.apple.com/archives/syndication-dev/2005/Nov/msg00002.html#_Toc52693 1682

is INCORRECT for subcategories. It recommends wrapping the the sub-category inside the top level category like:

<itunes:category text="Games &amp; Hobbies">
    <itunes:category text="Automotive" />
</itunes:category>

This just results in your feed going into the top-level category, not the sub-category.

The correct (or rather, working) way to do it is to list them on the same tag level:

<itunes:category text="Games &amp; Hobbies"/>
<itunes:category text="Automotive"/>

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Answer 7

May 13, 2016 8:43 AM in response to CarAdvice

CarAdvice,

Congrats on getting your categories to display how you desire. Note: Podcasts app users do not see sub-categories and cannot navigate to them.

Regarding iTunes, when you specify "nested" categories, you are listed in both the Games and Hobbies category as well as sub-category (Automotive)- as long as you rank high enough in either category, as usually on the first 300 results are shown. It will not say "Automotive" in the left column of your podcast page. I checked the documentation- Apple recommends nesting categories (see the RSS Tags page). So, if you find your categories are not displaying as desired in the future, you may want to check and make sure they are setup as Apple suggests.

-Fan

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