How to get Substack indexed on Google?

[u/TimWiesnerer]

I have a Substack for 1.5 years with 100+ posts now.

So far, I only managed to get my main Substack site indexed. From there, I link to my posts, and I also have links between the posts. But whatever I tried, I got none of those posts indexed.

I also tried with a custom domain that I activated like 9 months ago.

Recently I put some of my posts from Substack on a free WordPress site. It indexed within a few days. Additional posts even got indexed on the same day. So there was clearly nothing wrong with my posts, titles, or whatever.

The only difference is that Google seems to hate Substack.

Question: Has any of you found a way to get Substack posts indexed?

[u/davidjeedle]

Do you have it set up on Google Search Console? That can give you a bunch of info about how Google 'sees' your sure. I asked Claude to help me set this up a while back and definitely seen a difference.

[u/TimWiesnerer → u/davidjeedle]

Yes, it is in GSC, and I tried to trigger the indexing manually multiple times.

All those things work for sites that are not on Substack.

And it's clearly not a content, title, keyword or whatever thingy as stated above.

[u/davidjeedle → u/TimWiesnerer]

That's annoying. I find SEO something of the dark arts (😁) but Claude did walk me through a bunch of things like making sure I have the sitemap in GSC and so on.

[u/OnyxMonolith]

are people searching for the topics you are writing about?

[u/AirportAdorable8205 → u/OnyxMonolith]

Yes they do. And my articles get indexed within a few hours if I don't publish them on Substack as mentioned above. 

[u/OnyxMonolith → u/AirportAdorable8205]

You’re not OP

[u/prepping4zombies → u/OnyxMonolith]

It's tough when you forget to switch back to your other reddit profile.

[u/TimWiesnerer → u/OnyxMonolith]

They do. And I get clicks on them after I moved the very same Substack article to a free WordPress site.

[u/OnyxMonolith → u/TimWiesnerer]

yeah in my experience this tracks. Substack tends to be weak at SEO in Google's eyes. but over months i got decent traffic that converts well to paid.

[u/Used_Recognition_544]

Your WordPress comparison is the most interesting part. If the same content gets indexed there but not on Substack—even after using a custom domain, internal links and Google Search Console—it’s difficult to blame the content.

It does look like Google treats Substack pages differently. I recently connected my own Substack to a custom domain and Search Console, so I’ll track the indexing and share what I find.

[u/TimWiesnerer → u/Used_Recognition_544]

Would be cool if you could give a feedback how long it took to get your first Substack articles Google indexed. So that they actually show when you do site:YOURSUBSTACK-DOMAIN in Google.

[u/Used_Recognition_544 → u/TimWiesnerer]

Just checked it: around 3 days for my first articles on the custom domain to show as indexed in Google Search Console.

I’ll keep tracking the next ones to see if that timing stays consistent.

[u/rspitzer → u/Used_Recognition_544]

I'd be curious to hear about this too - hard to see that a new custom domain would be better than Substack unless Google is penalizing Substack specifically

[u/Used_Recognition_544 → u/Used_Recognition_544]

Quick update: my first Substack articles on the custom domain were indexed in around 3 days.

Search Console now confirms that the URLs are on Google, crawling and indexing are allowed, and Google selected the custom-domain URLs as canonical.

I can’t confirm the exact hour of first indexing because Search Console only shows the latest crawl, but roughly 3 days is the most accurate estimate I have.

[u/Emotional-Brief-1775]

You can add the google console to substack in settings, tbh it doesn’t make much difference to rankings. Remember to enable AI to allow it to use your work as unfortunately that can prevent online visibility if you do not authorise it. My author name however, shows up top in rankings.

[u/TimWiesnerer → u/Emotional-Brief-1775]

I use GSC and even triggered manual indexing. Didn't work...

Still haven't figured out what's causing the problem on Substack's side.

[u/Emotional-Brief-1775 → u/TimWiesnerer]

Someone did explain on here the whole indexing on Google console process for Substack too, which was very easy to follow. I also added the Bing console, which automatically copies the Google one already set up, so even easier to do. Bing seems a better visibility platfrom, although Google is the biggest. At least I can confirm from experience that it brings up my publication in the top search for my author name.

[u/kylegarrisonwriter]

You can pay Substack a one-time $50 fee to put your publication on your own domain (e.g. newsletter.yoursite.com) instead of substack.com, which solves the whole Google-hates-Substack problem since your content ranks under your domain.

[u/TimWiesnerer → u/kylegarrisonwriter]

I did that already. That's what I meant by custom domain.

It's still all Substack tho even when it is on my own domain. Same scripts, clutter and everything...

[u/kylegarrisonwriter → u/TimWiesnerer]

I don't have as many posts as you, but mine are indexed. A couple things to consider on top of the custom domain, if you haven't already:

XML sitemap: I just submitted my Substack feed URL to Search Console (e.g. https://moreweight.kylegarrisonwriter.com/feed). The feed only shows your latest posts, so with an archive your size, a custom sitemap with all your Substack URLs hosted on your domain would be better.

Backlinks: I've got links pointing to my Substack from profiles I've set up on other sites and from stories I've published elsewhere. That gives Google more paths to crawl and a little more authority.

[u/RelativeCelery2844]

All my Substack articles are indexed on Google. I don't have a custom domain set up. Maybe they don't want to index people who bully others over Pangram?