How Podcasts Show Up in Google Now That Google Podcasts Is Gone

Google no longer has a podcast app. Google Podcasts shut down in 2024, and Google moved listeners to podcasts on YouTube Music. Episodes still appear in Google Search, but as ordinary results: YouTube videos, video pages, regular web pages and links in AI Overviews. To appear there, an agent’s show needs a video version on YouTube and a text episode page on the agent’s own website.

Many of the pages that rank for this question are still how-to guides for the old Google Podcasts app or for Google Podcasts Manager, both of which are gone. This page explains what changed, using Google’s and YouTube’s own announcements and documentation (checked October 14, 2026), and what a local agent’s show needs now.

What happened to Google Podcasts?

Google Podcasts was discontinued in 2024 and replaced by podcasts on YouTube Music. YouTube announced the plan on September 26, 2023, in a post about creating a centralized podcast destination on YouTube Music: “Later in 2024, as part of this process, we’ll be discontinuing Google Podcasts.”

The same post gave Google’s reasoning, citing Edison Research: about 23% of weekly podcast users in the U.S. said YouTube was their most frequently used podcast service, compared with 4% for Google Podcasts. Those are 2023 figures as quoted by YouTube; we haven’t checked them against Edison’s own report.

The timeline, from YouTube’s December 7, 2023 post on migrating from Google Podcasts:

Date	What happened
September 26, 2023	YouTube announces Google Podcasts will be discontinued later in 2024
December 7, 2023	A migration tool starts rolling out to U.S. listeners: move subscriptions to YouTube Music or export them as an OPML file
Through March 2024	Google Podcasts stays available for listening in the U.S.
Through July 2024	U.S. listeners can still migrate or export their subscriptions

The podcaster side went too. The old Google Podcasts Manager address now shows a one-line notice, Google Podcasts Manager is no longer available, and points podcasters to uploading their RSS feed in YouTube Studio. If a guide tells you to “submit your show to Google Podcasts” or verify it in Podcasts Manager, it is out of date.

Where do podcast episodes appear in Google Search now?

Podcast episodes appear in Google Search the same way any other content does: as web pages and as videos. There is no podcast-specific result type to target. Google’s list of supported structured data has no podcast feature, which our podcast schema markup guide covers in detail.

Here is where an episode can show up, and what Google’s own documentation says each place needs.

Where it can appear	What shows	What Google’s documentation says it needs
Regular web results	Your episode page or an article written from the episode	An indexable page with real text: title, summary, transcript
Video results and video features	The YouTube video, or a video embedded on a page	For pages on your site, a watch page whose main purpose is one video, with the video in the rendered HTML
Key moments	Links to sections of a video	Nothing required, since Google tries to detect segments itself, but it prioritizes timestamps set in the YouTube description or structured data
AI Overviews and AI Mode	A link to your page as a supporting source	An indexed page eligible to show with a snippet; no special markup
YouTube and YouTube Music	The episode as a podcast	A podcast in YouTube Studio, from uploaded video or a connected RSS feed

Two of those need a little more explanation.

Video features need a watch page. Google’s video SEO best practices say a watch page’s main purpose is to show a single video. Search Console’s video indexing report lists “the video doesn’t seem to be on a watch page” as a reason a video isn’t indexed, and gives a blog post where the video complements the text as an example. So an episode page that leads with a long article may rank as a web page while its video isn’t indexed, and a page that leads with the video may be indexed as a video. Decide per episode which you want; our episode page template shows both layouts.

AI Overviews need nothing special. Google’s page on AI features and your website says there are “no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode,” that you don’t need new machine-readable files or special schema.org markup, and that important content should be available in textual form. For a podcast, that means the answer has to be written on the page, not only spoken in the audio.

How do you get a podcast onto YouTube and YouTube Music?

You get a podcast onto YouTube and YouTube Music by creating a podcast in YouTube Studio or by connecting your RSS feed. On YouTube a podcast is a playlist, and each episode is a video in it. Our YouTube SEO guide for real estate video podcasts covers the playlist setup, titles and thumbnails.

The RSS route suits audio-only shows, with some trade-offs. YouTube’s help page on delivering podcasts using an RSS feed says:

• YouTube creates a video for each episode you choose, using your show art as a static image, and uploads new episodes automatically.
• The feed only puts your show on YouTube and YouTube Music, not other platforms.
• Episodes upload as private first, and YouTube recommends waiting until all are uploaded before going public.
• RSS ingestion is available in select countries and regions.
• Podcast content uploaded this way can’t contain advertisements under YouTube’s Terms of Service, and branded content such as host-read promotions or sponsorships must be disclosed with the branded content setting.

A static-image video gets your episodes onto YouTube, but viewers searching YouTube see cover art next to competitors who show faces. If your show is about you as the local expert, recording video is usually worth the extra effort.

What does an agent’s show need to appear in Google?

An agent’s show needs a text page per episode on the agent’s own domain, a video version on YouTube with chapters, and Search Console set up to confirm both are indexed. Use this list once to set up and then every time you publish.

• An episode page on your own website for each episode, with the question it answers in the title and H1, a short written answer at the top, key points and an edited transcript. Whether that page should sit on your agent site, your brokerage site or a separate domain is covered in whether your podcast should live on your own website.
• A decision on video-led or text-led pages. If you want video features for an episode, make the video the main thing on the page and make sure it loads without a click.
• A YouTube version in a podcast playlist, with a searchable title.
• Chapters in the YouTube description, since Google says it prioritizes key moments set in the YouTube description. The rules for all three platforms are in podcast chapters on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
• The answer in text, not only in the audio, so AI Overviews and regular results have something to quote.
• Search Console verified for your site, with the video indexing report checked after you publish.

How do you check whether your episodes appear in Google?

You check whether your episodes appear in Google with Search Console, not by searching for them yourself. Your own searches are shaped by your location and history, and they show one moment. Search Console shows impressions and clicks across everyone.

1. Performance report: filter pages to your podcast folder and read the queries each episode page appears for.
2. Video indexing report: see how many pages Google indexed with a video and why others weren’t, per the video indexing report help page.
3. URL Inspection: for one page, a “Video indexing” section appears if Google found a video there.
4. YouTube Studio analytics: the reach report shows the YouTube search terms people used to find each episode.

To tie that search data to visits and leads on your site, see measuring podcast traffic to your website in GA4 and Search Console.

Is a podcast still worth it for Google search?

A podcast is still worth it for Google search if you turn each episode into a page and a video, because Google no longer gives podcast audio its own place to rank. The audio file alone does little in Google; the written episode page and the YouTube video are what get found. If you are deciding between a show and a written blog for search traffic, our comparison of podcast vs blog for a real estate agent weighs the two, and the podcast SEO guide for real estate agents has the full weekly routine.

If producing the video, the YouTube upload and a written page for every episode is more than you want to do yourself, have Icons publish each episode and write the matching article for your website. Icons of Real Estate’s ongoing production includes editing, publishing, promo clips, social promotion and SEO-optimized website articles.