If you started your podcast on Anchor — or signed up for Spotify for Podcasters — you might assume the platform gives you a website. It used to. It doesn't anymore.
When Spotify acquired Anchor in 2019 and rebranded it as Spotify for Podcasters (now called Spotify for Creators), they changed what happens to your show's public URL. The result is one of the most surprising findings in this review series: there is no podcast website at all.
We pulled the raw HTML from Anchor's old show pages using the same HTTP requests Google's crawlers send. What we found explains why so many podcasters on this platform aren't getting found in search.
- What Anchor Used to Provide
- What Happens to That URL Today
- What This Means for Your SEO
- Customization and Design
- Who Spotify for Podcasters Is Actually For
- Frequently Asked Questions
Key Takeaways
- Anchor show pages at
anchor.fm/[your-slug]now redirect to a generic Spotify for Creators marketing page, not your podcast. - The title, meta description, and OG tags on that page describe Spotify for Creators — not your show.
- There is no standalone podcast website provided by Spotify for Podcasters.
- Spotify show pages at
open.spotify.com/show/[id]exist but are Spotify-branded and non-customizable. - If a web presence matters to your podcast's growth, this platform doesn't provide one.
What Anchor Used to Provide
When Anchor launched, every podcast got a public show page at anchor.fm/[your-podcast-slug]. The page included your cover art, show description, and a list of episodes. It wasn't a full website, but it was a real public URL with your content on it.
That mattered for discoverability. A URL with your podcast name and description gave search engines something to index. Someone searching for your show by name had a chance of finding that page. The URL was simple, memorable, and yours — or at least it felt that way.
What Happens to That URL Today
We tested anchor.fm/[slug] URLs for active podcasts across our index of 2M+ shows. Here's exactly what we found in the HTML that gets served to Google and other crawlers:
- Page title: "Spotify for Creators — The easiest way to make a podcast"
- Meta description: "Create, distribute, host, and monetize your podcast, 100% free."
- og:title: "Spotify for Creators — The easiest way to make a podcast"
- Canonical URL:
creators.spotify.com/pod/show/[slug]
None of that is about your podcast. The title, description, and social sharing tags all describe Spotify's creator tool — not your show. A listener who searches for your podcast name won't find a page about your podcast. They'll find a generic Spotify marketing page.
The URL that was supposed to be yours is now a Spotify ad for Spotify.
What This Means for Your SEO
When Google crawls your old Anchor show URL, it reads content about Spotify for Creators. There is no podcast name in the title tag, no show description in the meta, no episode list, no schema.org markup for a podcast series. From Google's point of view, there is no podcast at that URL.
Spotify show pages at open.spotify.com/show/[id] are a different story — they do contain your show's name and description, and they do rank in Google search results. But those pages belong to Spotify, not to you. They carry Spotify's brand, they live on Spotify's domain, and there's nothing about them you can customize or control.
For podcasters who covered specific topics, built a following around a niche, or worked to grow an audience through search — the loss of an indexable show page is a real cost. It's the difference between having a web presence and being entirely dependent on app stores to be found.
Customization and Design: What's Available
The honest answer is: nothing. Spotify for Podcasters does not offer any kind of website customization. Their official creator support hub covers distribution, monetization, and analytics — there is no section on podcast websites because there is nothing to document. There's no custom theme, no domain, no about page, no episode-level landing pages, no blog, no email capture. The platform is focused on recording, distribution, and monetization — a web presence for your podcast simply isn't part of the product.
If you want a URL like yourpodcast.com, you won't find it here. If you want a page that carries your show's branding instead of Spotify's, that's not available either.
When you send someone to your "website," you're sending them to Spotify. That's fine if Spotify is where you want your audience — but it's worth knowing that's what's happening.
Who Spotify for Podcasters Is Actually For
Spotify for Podcasters is a distribution and monetization tool. Its core value is getting your podcast onto Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other major directories quickly and for free. It does that well. It's a legitimate choice for getting started.
But there's a meaningful difference between "distribution platform" and "podcast website." Spotify for Podcasters is the first. It has never been the second — and what used to approximate it has now been removed entirely.
Podcasters who want a web presence they control, a URL they own, and search visibility beyond the podcast app ecosystem will need to look elsewhere. The longer you wait on that, the longer you're building an audience that only exists inside platforms you don't control.
We covered similar findings in our reviews of Buzzsprout's website features and Libsyn's podcast pages — both of which at least provide some kind of public page, even if limited.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Spotify for Podcasters give you a podcast website?
No, not in any meaningful sense. The old Anchor show pages at anchor.fm/[slug] now redirect to a generic Spotify for Creators marketing page. There is no standalone website for your show included with the platform.
What happened to the Anchor show pages?
After Spotify acquired Anchor and rebranded it as Spotify for Podcasters (now Spotify for Creators), the public show pages were effectively replaced. The URLs still resolve, but the content served is Spotify's own creator marketing — not your podcast's information.
Can I use a custom domain with Spotify for Podcasters?
No. There is no custom domain feature. Spotify for Podcasters does not offer a web presence you can customize or host under a domain you own.
My show has a page on Spotify — doesn't that count?
Your show does have a page at open.spotify.com/show/[id], and it does appear in Google results. But it's a Spotify page — you can't customize it, add content to it, or direct it to your own domain. It's a listing on their platform, similar to an iTunes page.
What should I use if I want a real podcast website?
A podcast-specific website builder gives you a full site under your own domain with episode pages, SEO markup, and design you control — while still distributing to all the same directories. You don't have to choose between distribution and web presence.
The Lesson Spotify for Podcasters Teaches
The Anchor story is a clear example of what happens when your podcast's web presence lives inside someone else's platform. It was there, then it changed, and there was nothing you could do about it. Your SEO, your URL, your show page — all of it was on Spotify's terms.
Building an audience on platforms you don't control is a reasonable short-term strategy. But it's a ceiling. Podcasters who also maintain an independent website — one they own, on a domain they control — have more options and more resilience as platforms change.
If you want to see what a proper podcast website looks like, Podpage builds one from your RSS feed in about two minutes. Your episodes, your domain, your brand — not Spotify's.
How we verified this
We sent HTTP GET requests to anchor.fm/[slug] URLs for active podcasts in our index, using the same user-agent string that Google's crawler sends. Every request returned an HTTP redirect to creators.spotify.com/pod/show/[slug], with the resulting page titled "Spotify for Creators — The easiest way to make a podcast" — not the podcast's name or description. Tested across multiple shows in April 2026. No Anchor-hosted podcast page returned show-specific content.
