TL;DR
- Google search is no longer displaying play buttons on podcasts linking to Google Podcasts.
- The ability to listen to podcasts directly from Search results is now gone.
- The Google Podcasts app hasn’t been updated in months.
Google is known for killing off many of its products. In fact, it’s shutting one down today — Stadia. And it looks like Google Podcasts could be headed in the same direction soon.
Google introduced the Google Podcasts app back in 2018. The neat thing about the app is it allowed listeners to look up and listen to individual podcast episodes straight from Search. It also let you continue the same episode on various devices from the app or Search.
Regardless of how often it was used, Google appeared to stop updating the app in 2021 shortly after YouTube began focusing on bolstering its podcast experience, as reported by Bloomberg.
According to a new report from Podnews, now it appears the company has removed Google Podcasts from its Search results.
The play buttons that linked to the Google Podcast app in Search have disappeared, so listeners can no longer listen to podcasts directly from their results. So if you look for a podcast in Search now, you’ll only find links to reviews and other platforms.
A spokesperson for Google responded to the outlet stating that it’s working “as intended.” This means the removal of the play buttons was an intentional move by the company. Google didn’t explain the decision, but offered this statement:
YouTube and Google Podcasts serve different needs. Both serve podcast listeners today and we are not changing this right now. We have nothing more to share at this time.
At the moment, it appears Google Podcasts is still safe, but this is not a good sign for the platform’s fate.
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