Hints For Podcasters

It's possible you're reading this because you're a bit miffed that you run a great podcast and it isn't in the index.  We're sorry.

There's no good reason for this other than:

1. No-one has added it yet (if this is the case, just add it yourself), or
    
2. There are problems parsing your RSS feed.  This is the most likely explanation, unless your podcast is brand new. ("New", of course, is relative for such a young medium.)
   
   Incomplete or invalid RSS happens a depressing number of times.  Here are some hints to get you into the index:
    
   • You must have a valid XML file.  If nodes don't match up, I can't load your feed.
      
   • Your dates should be in RFC822/RFC1123 format (such as '18 Oct 2004 16:32:23 GMT') but any decent datetime format will do.  No, 'Fri, 09 Oct 2004 18:30:00 GMT' isn't a valid datetime because the 9th of October 2004 was a Saturday.  (Why is this error so common?)
      
   • You must specify things the RSS 2 format says you must specify. So if you specify an enclosure (audio file), you must specify the URL (full, please), the size (an integer) and the MIME type.
      
   • Use AllPodcast's RSS validator, which will show why an RSS feed is failing when I try and process it.  If you try this and you're convinced you're feed is right and my interpretation is wrong (which is most definitely not out of the question) then please let me know.

Remember, I want AllPodcasts.com to index all podcasts, so if your podcast isn't in the index please add it, and if your producing a good RSS feed that I can't parse please let me know.