Welcome to Libsyn! If you are looking to migrate to Libsyn from PowerPress and are hoping to maintain your publishing workflow on your WordPress site, you have come to the right tutorial.
This tutorial assumes the following:
- You currently have a Wordpress site
- You currently have a podcast
- Your podcast is setup using PowerPress for the RSS feed and...
- Your media files are not hosted at Libsyn
Let's get started!
Preparing to Migrate
To get started, you will first need to create a Libsyn show. To do so, go to our signup page.
Enter your details (name, email, billing, etc) and select a show slug.
The show slug is a unique identifier in the Libsyn system for your show. Our support staff can use your slug to locate your show. The slug is also used to generate the URLs for your show. It should be alphanumeric, 3 or more characters, and always start with a letter.
Next, select a subscription level and enter a promo code if you have one.
Read the terms of service, agree to the terms and hit signup at the bottom.
Next, install the Libsyn Publisher Hub. Leave the PowerPress plugin enabled and as is. Step by step instructions for installing and configuring the plugin can be found here.
Importing Content
With your Libsyn account setup and your Libsyn Publisher Hub plugin installed, the next step is to import the content. This process will grab all the stuff (media, images, titles, descriptions, feed configurations, all that stuff) into your Libsyn show. Don't worry, we will verify the data has transferred properly before finalizing the migration.
From your Wordpress Dashboard, select Libsyn Publisher Hub --> Import Feed.
The plugin will automatically detect your PowerPress feed and will give you a table view of the posts/episodes it found.
Notice the Episode Link column. The links found there are the permalinks for each post. Clicking on them will show you the post on the front end of your site.
When you are ready, scroll to the bottom and hit Import Local Feed.
The import will begin to run. The page will refresh several times, and will continue to refresh until the process is complete. This will take several minutes, the larger the feed and the more the media, the longer it will take to complete. Be patient, and allow time for the process to finish.
Notice the Feed Import Status. This will say Processing while the process is ongoing. If the import completes successfully, it will say Successful (as you can see below). If it does not, it will say Failed. In those few cases, reach out to our support team (support@libsyn.com) for assistance.
The Episode Link column will also change, showing the link as unavailable initially, then pending download, and then available. This is the act of the episode being generated in Libsyn, and the media file uploading into your Libsyn space and and attaching to the episode.
At this point, nothing has changed on your Wordpress site. All your content from your RSS feed has been imported into Libsyn, so let's go check our work.
Checking Our Work
The plugin will give you a list of all the episodes it pulled, and you can click on 'available' to test the media served from Libsyn. If you wish, you can also double check the show inside Libsyn to make sure all looks well. The places to check inside the Libsyn Dashboard include:
- Under Settings --> Show Settings
- Under Destinations --> Libsyn Classic Feed
- Under Content --> Previously Published
Spot check that you have a show title, description artwork, feed settings, and all your episodes have 'play' buttons rather than a 'T' next to the title of the episodes. These are all signs that your feed imported correctly (beyond the Successful message received by the plugin).
Changing Over the RSS Feed
The next step is to redirect your PowerPress RSS feed over to your Libsyn feed. This updates Apple Podcasts/Apple Podcasts, most other apps and your subscribers to pull from your Libsyn feed going forward. We recommend the Redirection plugin to do so.
PowerPress should still be an active plugin, do not yet deactivate PowerPress.
Once the Redirection plugin is installed and activated, please go under Tools --> Redirection.
You will see a list of any redirections you may already have (if this is a fresh install, you won't have any in the list), and the ability to add a source and target URL for a new redirect.
Source URL
Enter the URL to your PowerPress feed. This should be the URL in PowerPress that you submitted to Apple Podcasts (it is possible to setup multiple feeds and/or category feeds in PowerPress so be sure the URL you are redirecting is the URL for the show you are trying to migrate).
Target URL
This is the URL for your show feed in Libsyn. Generally, it will look like this:
https://.libsyn.com/rss
Then hit Add Redirect.
Important Note: If you are running a caching plugin on your site such as W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache, make sure to clear your cache after the redirect has been added, and also clear your browser cache if you try to test the redirect.
Using pair Networks Managed Wordpress Hosting
If you are hosting with our Managed Wordpress hosting solution at pair Networks, you will have a Varnish plugin installed an activated on your site. Make sure to clear the Varnish cache. Do not run an additional caching plugin with Varnish, as it can cause conflicts between the two for caching management and with Varnish caching, it isn't necessary.
Next, a New Feed URL tag needs to be entered into your Libsyn RSS feed. To do so, follow these steps:
- Log into your Dashboard
- Select Destinations
- Select Libsyn Classic Feed
- Scroll towards the bottom and select Advanced Options
- Enter the Apple Podcasts redirect tag in the Extra RSS Tags text box:
http://www.myfeedurl.com/rss.xml</itunes:new-feed-url>
Replace “http://www.myfeedurl.com/rss.xml” with whatever the URL of the feed you will be using (Libsyn) is.
These redirects, the 301 redirect and the new feed URL tag need to remain in place for a minimum of 4 weeks per Apple Podcasts/Apple Podcasts specifications (it doesn't hurt to leave them in longer). This ensures all your subscribers have a chance to update when their app of choice next refreshes your show in their listing.
Changing to the Libsyn Player
The last piece to this process is to update all the players on your existing WordPress posts to use the Libsyn player. The Libsyn Publisher Hub makes this easy, with a one click button that will update your posts for you.
Go back under Libsyn Publisher Hub --> Import Feed. Scroll to the bottom of the page and find and hit the Add Libsyn Player to Wordpress Posts button.
A dialog box asking you to confirm this is what you want will appear.
Hit Add Libsyn Player. Give the system a moment to run this process. Depending on how many posts you have, this process may take a moment or so to complete. The page will refresh and load properly once the process is done. If, at this stage, you were to look at one of your existing posts, you will notice there will be a double player on the post.
This is normal, do not worry! This is actually expected.
Deactivate PowerPress
This is the point at which PowerPress should be deactivated. In your Wordpress Dashboard, go under Plugins --> Installed Plugins. Locate PowerPress in the list, and hit Deactivate.
You do not have to delete PowerPress yet if you don't wish to, just make sure it is deactivated. Once you do, the player on your posts will appear correctly.
Final Notes
Regarding Storage in Libsyn
The import process run through the plugin will automatically adjust the storage used inside Libsyn, so the import will not affect your ability to publish new content going forward.
Cache Clears
Once you've updated your player on your site, you may wish to clear your cache or clear Varnish again, as well as clear your browser cache, if you don't immediately see the player updates you expect to see.
Getting Additional Help
Have questions? Contact our support staff at support@libsyn.com.