Search API by show does not returning correct podcast

dranreb — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 02:56:07 GMT

When using the Search API by type show, the result does not contain the podcast that was searched for in certain cases. The search API does not seem to perform a strict search in contrary to the internal API used on the Spotify search page.

For example:

"Dr. Why Podcast"

When searching here: https://open.spotify.com/search/Dr.%20Why%20Podcast/podcastAndEpisodes its the first match in the results. It seems to use this private API:

https://api-partner.spotify.com/pathfinder/v2/query

operationName: "searchPodcasts"

However when using the public Search API, above podcast is not returned in the result. I have observed the same issue with other podcasts as well when using the Search API vs the the Spotify search page.

It looks like the search page's internal API uses a exact search match, while the Spotify Search API uses a loose search on the search criteria.

Is there any way using the public APIs to get the same results as the Spotify search page? Is it possible to search using a strict/exact search on the query string?

I tried using quotes such as "'Dr. Why Podcast'", however results are similar.

Thanks in advance

topic Search API by show does not returning correct podcast in Spotify for Developers

Search API by show does not returning correct podcast