About Pocket Casts Feed Parser

Pocket Casts is a popular podcast listening platform that helps millions of users discover and enjoy podcasts. To provide this service, we maintain a Feed Parser system that regularly checks podcast RSS feeds across the internet.

If you’ve noticed requests from Pocket Casts in your server logs, this is our Feed Parser doing its job. The parser periodically downloads podcast RSS feeds to:

• Check for new episodes
• Update podcast metadata (titles, descriptions, artwork, etc.)
• Verify feed availability
• Maintain accurate podcast information for our users

For more information see Podcast Parsing.

Our Feed Parser identifies itself with a specific User Agent string when accessing RSS feeds. This allows website owners to identify our parser in their logs. The User Agent used by the Feed Parser is:

PocketCasts/1.0 (Pocket Casts Feed Parser; +http://pocketcasts.com/)

Pocket Casts accesses RSS feeds from specific IP addresses. If your server implements IP-based access restrictions, you may need to whitelist our IP addresses to ensure your podcast remains accessible to Pocket Casts users.

The IP addresses used by the Feed Parser are:

crawler1.pocketcasts.com 35.169.190.168
crawler2.pocketcasts.com 3.219.254.95
crawler1.pocketcasts.net 3.215.36.60
crawler2.pocketcasts.net 3.216.185.164

To ensure optimal compatibility with Pocket Casts:

1. Keep your RSS feed accessible: Avoid blocking our user agent or IP addresses
2. Use standard RSS formats: Follow podcast RSS feed specifications
3. Enable caching: Implement proper HTTP caching headers to reduce server load
4. Maintain feed stability: Avoid changing your feed URL without proper redirects

Our Feed Parser respects standard rate limiting practices and implements reasonable delays between requests. We strive to be a good citizen of the web while maintaining a reliable service for our users.

If you have questions about our Feed Parser’s behavior or need to report issues:

1. Contact our support team
2. Provide your RSS feed URL
3. Include relevant server logs showing the behavior you’re observing

We’re committed to maintaining a healthy podcast ecosystem and working cooperatively with content providers.