Podcast file embed code keeps showing up in iTunes descriptions
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A few weeks ago I began using WordPress to host a new podcast and I have one particular problem that I have not been able to find help on by Googling or looking through support here.
To start I host podcast mp3s on Google Drive. Then I make a post here to create the RSS feed, and I gave that feed to Feedburner with iTunes requirements turned on, and then I gave that Feedburner feed to iTunes.
Problem is while anything I type in the WordPress post becomes my iTunes episode description for that particular episode, the episode description also ends up containing the long, unnecessary Google Drive URL location for the episode mp3. So my episode descriptions in iTunes end up looking something like this:
“Welcome to the third episode. Hope you enjoy it.
I’ve tried all kinds of things to hide this link from showing up in the ep descriptions but have failed so far. I even tried hiding the link as a hyper link to a period at the end of a sentence, and this worked for iTunes devices, but all uninterrupted code still showed up in the iTunes desktop app.
Can anyone help me figure this out? Thanks.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi danleary25,
It looks like iTunes doesn’t support HTML links, which is why the link appears in the description. Have you tried using a URL shortener instead?
SInce you’re on Google Drive, give https://goo.gl/ a try!
Please feel free to post back if you’re still facing a problem with this!
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Hi valentine,
Sorry but that’s not the problem I’m trying to express here. I wasn’t even trying to put HTML code in my episode description.
The point is I don’t want the URL location of my podcast episode to be showing up in my episode description at all. If I used a URL shortener then that short URL would be showing up in my episode description instead of the long obnoxious URL it currently is at and I would still have the same problem I started with. Below is a link to an image of my of my episode descriptions.
See how the last line is a long URL to the MP3 location. I want that out. But I can’t find a way of HIDING it from the iTunes episode description. But if I take the URL out entirely than the episode doesn’t have a file for iTunes to download.
So, does anyone know how to fix this problem.
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Is anyone able to help with this problem? Please read my original post, it still hasn’t been addressed.
Thanks.
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I checked your screenshot at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/102382124/episodedescription.jpg and I see the long URL. For documentation, I found the related post:
http://thosewhowanderpodcast.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/tww-podcast-2-1-02-where-theres-a-will-theres-a-fae-and-1-03-oh-kappa-my-kappa/And I see that the link at the bottom there uses the text “Open episode in broswer” and points to https://c68f13dce1a01f8d5bfc4eb0fff61c843575120d.googledrive.com/host/0B7Gw2tiuVF4vWXhDMkoyWjc0Skk/TWW001.mp3 which matches with the URL in your screenshot.
May I ask what version of iTunes you used to make your screenshot? And where did you find that description, was it after you went to File > Subscribed to Podcast in iTunes and then entered the main feed URL for your blog which is http://thosewhowanderpodcast.wordpress.com/feed/ ?
There is one option in WordPress under Settings > Reading which might help. It is a setting that lets you opt to display a summary in the feed instead of the full description. To use it, go to Settings > Reading and find the option that says “For each article in a feed, show” and select Summary.
The summary is a short snippet of the description or a custom excerpt which you can provide when you create the post:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/excerpts/Excerpts might work to let you have more control over what displays in iTunes.
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Hi designsimply,
Thank you so much. Turning on summary/excerpt option solved this problem. Although now I can’t break periods with new lines in the episode description, but I can live with that.
The screenshot actually came from my Feedburner page, but the way the episode description was laid out is exactly how it was in iTunes as well. I put the long Google Drive link into the words “Open episode in browser” because, since I wasn’t finding a way to hide the link from the episode description completely, I needed someway of cleaning it up at the time.
Where the episode description is, is when you search for my podcast in the itunes store and then click the (i) simple to the right of each episode. When you subscribe to the show there was again an (i) next to each episode, and it was the same way on the iPhone.
Thank you so much for you help.
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Although now I can’t break periods with new lines in the episode description
Ah yes, that’s the tradeoff.
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