Lately I’ve noticed something strange: you can publish a widely read Substack piece, name institutions, cite evidence, break real news — and Google acts like none of it ever happened.
This isn’t paranoia; it’s structural. Substack pages are only partially indexed, metadata is limited, dynamic loading hides content from crawlers, and screenshots (which many of us rely on) simply don’t exist to Google. The result: writers with thousands of readers appear invisible on the public web.
Maybe Substack wants a closed ecosystem. Fine. But if the goal is real publishing — public record, journalism, accountability — then basic search visibility isn’t optional.
So here’s the ask:
If Substack doesn’t intend to keep its writers in search anonymity, it might be time to strengthen SEO.
Readers search the open web. Our work should live there too.
I like the stack because it’s where everyone one went that got canceled went it the redoubts the George Washington spoke of . It is an open system hidden from the matrix
Is there something about Substack that makes it harder to share links to the content? I agree it is a shame that search engines are not able to increase the readership of the fabulous articles found there.