Finding Podcast Hosting

Written by Nick Smith
Publisher of Podcast Autocue

For anyone who wants to begin creating a podcast, podcast hosting is the most important part. Before anyone can begin distributing a podcast, they need a place to store the files and keep the feed file that will tell their subscribers about the new episodes available.

The first thing required is a domain name where the site will be located. Many domain registrars are available who will help one register a domain name for a small fee. Once the domain is registered, hosting is required, and again there are many different companies willing to do the hosting for a small fee.

Two recommended hosts I have used and continute to use are HostGator and LiquidWeb - both are excellent webhosts, not just for podcasting but for any type of web site. When looking for a host, the most important thing is to make sure that a lot bandwidth and storage space is available and cheap. Since podcasting deals with large media files, a lot of disk space will be taken up storing the files and bandwidth will be eaten quickly when they are downloaded by the subscribers.

After podcast hosting has been acquired, it needs to be used and the site needs to be set up. The DNS addresses of the site need to be set to the addresses that the host provides you so that the servers that underlie the internet will know where your site is. DNS addresses can be set by going to the domain registrar that was used to acquire the domain and inputting the addresses provided by the host.

After that is done, it will take a few days before the master list the domain registar updates will be shared throughout the internet and all name servers know where to find your specific domain. You can then go about setting up your own podcast.

Using the podcast hosting you now have, you will need to look at the disk space allocated to the site using something called and FTP browser. The host may provide one as part of their hosting plan, but if not there are many available free to choose from, my personal favorite being FileZilla (free).

Once you have chosen your FTP browser, you will need to download a small program called DirCaster from http://www.dircaster.org. DirCaster is free script that generates an RSS feed file by looking at the contents of its directory or folder.

You simply edit the dircaster.php file with your web hosting specifics, using a text editor like Notepad and then log into your web hosting account, create a folder to host all your podcasts and upload the dircaster.php file into that folder.

Once you have confirmed all the information about each of your podcast mp3 files are correct, you can then uploaded them all into to the same folder as DirCaster so it can start cataloging them.

The podcast hosting you now have will allow you to distribute a podcast. It would be best to upload more to the site, such as a regular HTML index page that tells visitors about the podcast and provides the address of the DirCaster file on your site. When they subscribe to that file with their podcast client software it access the newsfeed and recieve information about the latest podcasts available.

Congratulations - you are now a podcast publisher!

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