I made a joke on Twitter earlier this morning that back in 2004 when someone said “How can I listen to your podcast?”, you'd tell them to download some software and then get them the RSS feed but don’t click on the RSS feed, and then give that RSS feed to the software they installed, and that software would then download the latest episode of your show show, and then could  transfer that episode onto their mobile device so they could listen. Which was kind of a pain. In 2005, Apple started listing podcasts inside of iTunes, and it was slightly less complicated for the next 13 years, but still a process. But now, in early May 2019, when someone asks “How can I listen to your podcast?”, you can just tell them to Google it. Seriously. If you google “podcast pontifications”, you will see, right there in Google's SERP for that query, play options for the three most recent episodes of my show. No need to visit my website first. But what I've noticed (and remember this is very early in this release) is something subtle and interesting. Best of all, it relates to the theme of “podcasting things I’ve changed my mind about” I’ve been pursuing this week. When you google “podcast pontifications”, you should get my domain and website -- PodcastPontification.com -- as the first listing. Underneath that listing, you'll see sub-listings playable recent episodes. After that, you’ll see a bunch of other pages/sites that Google displays, like Stitcher, Spotify and a bunch of other ones. That’s how Google works, giving you lots of choices, but with the best (?) first. When I did something similar for my clients’ podcasts, I noticed something different. While episodes are showing in the SERP, those episodes aren’t sub-listed under with the primary websites for my clients. Often times, it’s the show’s Apple Podcasts listing in the SERP that has the episodes listed below. Why is that happening, my clients are sure to ask. Here's what I think is happening. I think that Google is looking for a dedicated website -- not just a web page on an existing website -- for the podcast. If I’m right (and again, it’s very early), I’m now going to even more strongly communicate to my clients the importance of establishing a domain and dedicated website their podcasts. Not that the website has to be extensive, mind you. You don't have to go through the trouble of building an entire website or creating per-episode pages on that new domain. If you look at my site, PodcastPontifications.com, you’ll notice it's a one-page website. It’s a single page, and it doesn’t even link to all of my episodes. My episodes on a totally different domain -- podcastpontifications.libsyn.com -- that's generated by my podcast media host, Libsyn.