Enclosure prefix URLs are often provided by podcast attribution or metrics tracking applications (such as Podtrac, Podroll, etc) to track, measure or analyze a podcast's performance. The enclosure prefix URL provided by the third party is embedded in your RSS feed and ensures that all download requests for an episode are re-routed through their servers as well as Dovetails’. If you’d like to know more about prefixes, Sounds Profitable has a lovely explainer here.
Apple Podcasts has a limitation on the amount of enclosure prefix related redirects they support, so we recommend keeping the number of prefixes on your feed in Dovetail to four or less.
Also, please note that any edits to the enclosure prefix URL within your feed will prompt a download spike from Spotify. This is related to Spotify's feed caching policy and can't be avoided.
Follow the steps below to either add or remove prefixes.
Add a Prefix
Step 1 - Log into Dovetail Podcasts through id.prx.org
Step 2 - Select the show you’d like to add, edit or remove a prefix from
Step 3 - Navigate to the Feeds tab
Step 4 - Select the Enclosure Prefix URL field and enter the prefix from your third-party provider, and then hit Save.
If you are adding multiple prefix URLs to Dovetail (yes, you can do that!), remove the http:// portion of the additional prefix URL and add it to the previous prefix following a backward slash.
For example, if you’re looking to combine a prefix url from
Podtrac (https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3) and Chartable (rip) (https://chrt.fm/track/XXXXX) it might look something like:
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3 + / + chrt.fm/track/XXXXX
=
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/XXXXX
Maximum 4 Prefix URLs!