[sebnun]

I'm building a language learning app based on podcasts and I used "The Podcast Index" first but, as I understand, The Podcast Index is not currently scraping Apple and many of the podcasts in their index are dead. For better or worse Apple podcasts is the "de facto" index of podcasts, so I had to build my own podcast index based on itunes data.

You can see a comparison of the different indexes (indices?) at https://podcastindustryinsights.com/

[willio58]

Isn’t the entire idea of the podcast index that they aren’t relying on a single platform for their source of truth? Podcasts are decentralized by design so in theory all links to podcasts should be scrape-able in some way (just as Google scrapes websites). One of the sites the podcast index should scrape is Apple, but it should by no means be limited to a single platform.

[paulryanrogers]

The decentralization works against discovery. For the longest time I couldn't find many DOS gaming podcasts. Then I happened to search Spotify. Lo and behold there are more there, and their recommendations helped find adjacent podcasts. Of course Spotify is a walled garden, so I have mixed feelings.

Full disclosure, I work for a company that provides a paywall to podcasters. (Among other things.)

[normand1]

I use podcast index exclusively for podcast search and I've never been unable to find a podcast I was looking for there (just my experience in having used it for years)

[gweinberg]

My personal experience is, the second one I tried gave me a miss.

[normand1]

Just curious, what podcast was it?

[perelin]

I recently also wanted to play around with some itunes podcast data. But it seemed Apple removed the scrapable catalogue index of their podcast library. How did you build up your database, if i may ask?

[ericpp]

There are a lot of dead podcasts in general. It's tough to sustain a podcast and many people give up after doing a handful of episodes.