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Avoiding Podcast Slug Conflicts in PowerPress

Updated

PowerPress uses podcast as the default slug for your main podcast-only RSS feed. Because WordPress requires slugs to be unique, creating a page, category, tag, or other item with the slug podcast can cause conflicts.

Important: We do not recommend using podcast as the slug for a page, category, tag, or custom content type. Use a more specific slug, such as podcasts, episodes, or your podcast title.

Why This Happens

In WordPress, the web-friendly part of a URL is called a slug. For example, in example.com/podcast/, the slug is podcast.

PowerPress reserves the podcast slug for the podcast-only RSS feed. This feed is used to keep podcast episodes separate from regular blog posts so podcast apps and directories receive the correct content.

If you try to create a page, category, tag, or other WordPress item using the same slug, WordPress may automatically change it to something like podcast-2 to avoid a conflict.

Recommended Solution

The best solution is to rename the page, category, tag, or other item to use a more specific slug.

Examples:

  • podcasts
  • episodes
  • show
  • listen
  • your-show-name-podcast

This avoids conflicts and usually creates a better URL for listeners and search engines.

Category-Specific Issues

WordPress categories are usually displayed under the category base, such as:

example.com/category/your-category-slug/

If you create a category with the slug podcast, it may conflict with the PowerPress podcast feed. For SEO and clarity, use a more descriptive category slug, such as your podcast title or topic.

Important: Do not use podcast as the category slug for Category Podcasting. Use a unique, descriptive category slug instead.

Page-Specific Issues

If you create a page at example.com/podcast/, WordPress may not be able to clearly determine whether that URL should load the page or the PowerPress podcast feed.

Instead, create a page with a more specific slug, such as:

  • listen-to-the-show
  • subscribe
  • episodes
  • your-show-name-podcast

If You Want to Use example.com/podcast/ Anyway

If you want listeners to visit example.com/podcast/, the safest approach is to create a page with a different slug and redirect /podcast/ to that page.

For example, you could create a page at:

example.com/subscribe-to-podcast/

Then redirect:

example.com/podcast/

to that page.

Tip: A redirect lets you share the simple URL example.com/podcast/ while keeping the actual WordPress page slug unique and conflict-free.

Advanced Option: Rewrite Rule

If you or your web developer are comfortable editing server rewrite rules, you can redirect /podcast/ to another page or category using an Apache rewrite rule.

Example redirect to a page:

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^podcast\/?$ https://example.com/subscribe-to-podcast/

Example redirect to a category:

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^podcast\/?$ https://example.com/category/your-podcast-title/
Important: Only edit rewrite rules if you are comfortable working with your site’s server configuration. Incorrect rewrite rules can make parts of your site unavailable.

Options We Do Not Recommend

There are advanced ways to force WordPress and PowerPress to allow a page or category called podcast, but we do not recommend them for most users.

These options may include:

  • Temporarily disabling PowerPress to create the slug
  • Changing advanced PowerPress podcast permalink behavior
  • Editing wp-config.php to disable the default podcast feed

These methods can create future compatibility problems, especially after WordPress or PowerPress updates.

Best Practice

Use podcast only for the PowerPress podcast feed. For pages, categories, tags, and other site content, choose a unique and descriptive slug that clearly identifies the content.