Google has announced a better integration for podcasts into Google Search. For example, when you search on a specific topic with podcast content (e.g. searching for “podcasts about Awkwafina” or “Instant one-pot recipes”) it will now display playable episodes in search results alongside the usual web pages, images, news and videos.
The episodes will be displayed based on what Google’s understanding of what’s being talked about in the episodes. Google has also said that, in the future, you won’t need to use the word podcast in your search – it will surface podcast content where relevant automatically.
Google has also mentioned that this will also be rolled out to the Google Assistant and Google Podcasts for Web later this year.
As part of Google’s work to help podcasters build audiences (and grow their businesses), the company has announced that they will soon add the ability for publishers to specify where you can listen to their podcasts, such as apps like Google Podcast or Spotify or other apps or websites. This will help you identify those podcasts which are exclusive to purchase or offered via a subscription based fee.
These features are rolling out as of today and but are exclusive to users using US English for now. It is unclear if this feature will be rolling out to other countries like Australia, but we will be keeping an eye out for any further developments or updates.
