Does having a www.owndomain.com instead of https://owndomain.com redirect to my substack have any negative effects because the custom domain isn't a https://? Thank you for this post, I'm seriously considering a custom domain redirect now!
I did! After I left my comment. 😅 It seems like you can only add SSL certification to a site that you host, so it cannot be applied to just a domain name. But whether this affects SEO ranking, I wasn’t able to find a direct answer. The research continues…
This is great info. I've had a domain/website for years but am tired of not only maintaining it-endlessly updating pluggins, bending WP themes to my liking.- but also the hasssle-not always-of posting a new article w/photo. I have debating about doing away with my site altogether while keeping the domain, and this is a good way to do it (and we'll see once I actually do it!).
Want to offer some further insight regarding the technical details, and hypothesized risks over having (or not having) control over your digital assets.
Any concern isn't your domain, it's that your content continues to reside on Substack's servers. If Substack suddenly shut down one day, all of your content would be gone. So unless you had a recent backup of all your content, you're SOL.
When you pay $50 to "install" your domain (to use your words) on Substack, all they do is create mod_rewrite command on their server's htaccess file. This more or less creates a mask that covers up the original URL (yourcoolsite.substack.com), and displays a the custom domain (yourcoolsite.com). This works in conjunction with you directing (i.e. pointing) your domain to "yourcoolsite.substack.com" which is now set up with the mod_rewrite rule. The end user is still receiving your content from Substack's servers, but it FEELS like they just went to yourcoolsite.com and everything is in that place.
My slight hang-up with this is that you're paying $50 for Substack to add a simple mod_rewrite command that takes less than 60 seconds if done manually. In reality, Substack is just using a bot to write it into htaccess file (bots have been doing that for decades). So the $50 fee feels like a cheap way for Substack to gouge users. Plus Substack does NOT include 301 redirects in the process, so any search engine clout you've achieved will now be seen by search engines as a broken link, and your own domain will not benefit from the "SEO good will" you've previously built on Substack. So there's part of this that feels like rather manipulative.
If you're building a new Substack, it may benefit you to add a custom domain early. Your own domain gains the SEO benefits and authority off the bat, making it easier to migrate anywhere at all down the road, if you choose.
Thank you so much for this article - I was getting ready to pay the $50 fee before I found your article. Super helpful. I greatly appreciate you putting this out there!
I’ve been applying to get press passes/media accreditation for conferences and i think it does help get over the initial hurdle of someone seeing a substack link and having a potential negative reaction like “oh its just a substack” instead of a website i created. They’ll obviously still see the content, but that first impression might make a difference.
I’ve read through the comments but haven’t found an answer to my question: what if one already has a domain (in my case, a recipe website)? I have a Substack by the same name that I treat as my weekly newsletter. What then?
Yes, exactly, Betty! Most domain control panels will let you set up new subdomains with any names you want. Then you can let Substack take over the subdomain as the "Custom domain" in your Settings, if you like. The Substack support bot reassured me last summer that subdomains would work here.
Or you can point the subdomain to your Substack with redirects in your domain control panel. That's what I'm doing. Tonight I set up a subdomain with a temporary (302) 'Wild Card Redirect'. So any Substack URL in my newsletter can be aliased through my site. I can use ai6p.karensmiley.com/archive and it will automatically bring up sixpeas.substack.com/archive. It works great.
There actually are SEO advantages, in terms of migrating to new platforms.
Let's say that you eventually want a website that can do more than a Substack site can do, so you decide to change tracks and rebuild using Wordpress, with a more traditional hosting setup. And let's also imagine that you have a great developer who can do all the ugly technical stuff for you and manage to get all your content onto the new Wordpress platform without any issues.
If you weren't using your custom domain for Substack previously at a different location, all of your SEO accomplishments are wiped out, and you're starting from scratch again. Even worse--because your content is exactly the same as what search engines previously indexed, it might even look inauthentic to them, and be penalized.
However, if you had used your custom domain from the outset, the search engines would have already understood your content as belonging to your domain. So migrating to Ghost, or your own Wordpress site, will have no impact on SEO.
Thanks for all this insight. There was one typo in the first line of your second paragraph that makes this confusing. Could you rephrase "If weren't using..." ?
I don't think it matters either way. It's all on the internet, it eventually ranks for SEO. The only advantage of a custom domain is it sounds better when you're saying it. A Substack URL is pretty clunky to say out loud lol.
You're right Kristi, there are lots of successful stacks with regular Substack domains. I think, over time all posts are indexed and discoverable. All things take time with "the google" 😁
Having been an SEO and content marketer for 10+ years, I appreciated being able to use my own domain name here and knowing I could take it with me if I ever switched platforms. Also, when I was first getting set up, I had read Substack's SEO was bad and having your own domain might be a way around that. For the record, I still don't know if that was true. I feel like there is good discoverability of Substack posts in Google search, provided they are actually indexed.
I still think having a custom URL is the right approach, especially if you already have a domain name and are moving your existing newsletter/website to Substack OR you plan to market your newsletter beyond Substack (and especially if you're using offline or more traditional methods). It's very easy to tell people my URL when they ask where they can find me. The best URLs are streamlined and easy to remember.
All that said, there are many successful Substacks without custom URLs.
My point of view is that If you have an available custom domain, use it for your publication. I am in the process of setting up my publication with my own domain which I have been using for my Wordpress based website previously. Write well and for your readers and traffic will pick up. For any SEO worries, I wouldn`t overthink it. It will pick up again if there are any loss of «SEO juice». I would rather put my energy and focus elsewhere
So, thanks to you I'm now the proud owner of fcca.ca (My newsletter's initials! And my fave domain extension 🇨🇦). Eventually I'll get around to doing the thingamajig you say in this newsletter. Thanks!!
Does having a www.owndomain.com instead of https://owndomain.com redirect to my substack have any negative effects because the custom domain isn't a https://? Thank you for this post, I'm seriously considering a custom domain redirect now!
Honestly, I have no idea. It might help to Google that??
I did! After I left my comment. 😅 It seems like you can only add SSL certification to a site that you host, so it cannot be applied to just a domain name. But whether this affects SEO ranking, I wasn’t able to find a direct answer. The research continues…
This is great info. I've had a domain/website for years but am tired of not only maintaining it-endlessly updating pluggins, bending WP themes to my liking.- but also the hasssle-not always-of posting a new article w/photo. I have debating about doing away with my site altogether while keeping the domain, and this is a good way to do it (and we'll see once I actually do it!).
Want to offer some further insight regarding the technical details, and hypothesized risks over having (or not having) control over your digital assets.
Any concern isn't your domain, it's that your content continues to reside on Substack's servers. If Substack suddenly shut down one day, all of your content would be gone. So unless you had a recent backup of all your content, you're SOL.
When you pay $50 to "install" your domain (to use your words) on Substack, all they do is create mod_rewrite command on their server's htaccess file. This more or less creates a mask that covers up the original URL (yourcoolsite.substack.com), and displays a the custom domain (yourcoolsite.com). This works in conjunction with you directing (i.e. pointing) your domain to "yourcoolsite.substack.com" which is now set up with the mod_rewrite rule. The end user is still receiving your content from Substack's servers, but it FEELS like they just went to yourcoolsite.com and everything is in that place.
My slight hang-up with this is that you're paying $50 for Substack to add a simple mod_rewrite command that takes less than 60 seconds if done manually. In reality, Substack is just using a bot to write it into htaccess file (bots have been doing that for decades). So the $50 fee feels like a cheap way for Substack to gouge users. Plus Substack does NOT include 301 redirects in the process, so any search engine clout you've achieved will now be seen by search engines as a broken link, and your own domain will not benefit from the "SEO good will" you've previously built on Substack. So there's part of this that feels like rather manipulative.
If you're building a new Substack, it may benefit you to add a custom domain early. Your own domain gains the SEO benefits and authority off the bat, making it easier to migrate anywhere at all down the road, if you choose.
I have a custom domain but redirect it myself, partly to avoid the $50 fee and partly to stay in control.
I feel exactly the same way. This is how I'd do it.
Thank you so much for this article - I was getting ready to pay the $50 fee before I found your article. Super helpful. I greatly appreciate you putting this out there!
Amazing! I'm glad to have saved you 50 bucks!!
I’ve been applying to get press passes/media accreditation for conferences and i think it does help get over the initial hurdle of someone seeing a substack link and having a potential negative reaction like “oh its just a substack” instead of a website i created. They’ll obviously still see the content, but that first impression might make a difference.
I hear what you're saying Nick. It does look neat and tidy and if you're shooting for things like press passes, it makes sense.
I’ve read through the comments but haven’t found an answer to my question: what if one already has a domain (in my case, a recipe website)? I have a Substack by the same name that I treat as my weekly newsletter. What then?
Betty, you could redirect a subdomain of your site to Substack. It doesn’t need to take over your whole website.
Oh I hadn’t thought of that! So would it be something like newsletter.websitename.com?
If you're feeling cheeky about it, you could even make it substack.websitename.com. Turn the tables on Substack. =P
Hahaha now this would be funny. But also confusing if someone noticed 😁
Yes, exactly, Betty! Most domain control panels will let you set up new subdomains with any names you want. Then you can let Substack take over the subdomain as the "Custom domain" in your Settings, if you like. The Substack support bot reassured me last summer that subdomains would work here.
Or you can point the subdomain to your Substack with redirects in your domain control panel. That's what I'm doing. Tonight I set up a subdomain with a temporary (302) 'Wild Card Redirect'. So any Substack URL in my newsletter can be aliased through my site. I can use ai6p.karensmiley.com/archive and it will automatically bring up sixpeas.substack.com/archive. It works great.
Thank you!!!
Betty, I have the exact answer you need in a previously written post. Here you go! 😊
https://unstackit.substack.com/p/a-simple-way-to-tie-your-website-to-your-substack?utm_source=publication-search
Thank you!
As always, I appreciate how clearly you explain things. I haven’t gone the custom domain route yet but probably will.
I'm glad you found this helpful! 😊
Are there any SEO advantages in having your own domain? Is re directing less effective in terms of SEO, does it matter?
There actually are SEO advantages, in terms of migrating to new platforms.
Let's say that you eventually want a website that can do more than a Substack site can do, so you decide to change tracks and rebuild using Wordpress, with a more traditional hosting setup. And let's also imagine that you have a great developer who can do all the ugly technical stuff for you and manage to get all your content onto the new Wordpress platform without any issues.
If you weren't using your custom domain for Substack previously at a different location, all of your SEO accomplishments are wiped out, and you're starting from scratch again. Even worse--because your content is exactly the same as what search engines previously indexed, it might even look inauthentic to them, and be penalized.
However, if you had used your custom domain from the outset, the search engines would have already understood your content as belonging to your domain. So migrating to Ghost, or your own Wordpress site, will have no impact on SEO.
Thanks for all this insight. There was one typo in the first line of your second paragraph that makes this confusing. Could you rephrase "If weren't using..." ?
Oof, tragic mistake! Thanks for pointing it out.
If YOU weren't using....
I don't think it matters either way. It's all on the internet, it eventually ranks for SEO. The only advantage of a custom domain is it sounds better when you're saying it. A Substack URL is pretty clunky to say out loud lol.
You're right Kristi, there are lots of successful stacks with regular Substack domains. I think, over time all posts are indexed and discoverable. All things take time with "the google" 😁
Having been an SEO and content marketer for 10+ years, I appreciated being able to use my own domain name here and knowing I could take it with me if I ever switched platforms. Also, when I was first getting set up, I had read Substack's SEO was bad and having your own domain might be a way around that. For the record, I still don't know if that was true. I feel like there is good discoverability of Substack posts in Google search, provided they are actually indexed.
I still think having a custom URL is the right approach, especially if you already have a domain name and are moving your existing newsletter/website to Substack OR you plan to market your newsletter beyond Substack (and especially if you're using offline or more traditional methods). It's very easy to tell people my URL when they ask where they can find me. The best URLs are streamlined and easy to remember.
All that said, there are many successful Substacks without custom URLs.
This is SUCH a great workaround. I might try this instead of screwing with the Substack end.
If only CHAD was as helpful as us ladies are. 🫶
He has his good days though! 😂😂
Just what I needed to read today!
Thanks for this. I was wrestling with this issue. Now I believe that redirecting is the way to go. 👍🏽😁
My point of view is that If you have an available custom domain, use it for your publication. I am in the process of setting up my publication with my own domain which I have been using for my Wordpress based website previously. Write well and for your readers and traffic will pick up. For any SEO worries, I wouldn`t overthink it. It will pick up again if there are any loss of «SEO juice». I would rather put my energy and focus elsewhere
So, thanks to you I'm now the proud owner of fcca.ca (My newsletter's initials! And my fave domain extension 🇨🇦). Eventually I'll get around to doing the thingamajig you say in this newsletter. Thanks!!
Ha! Brilliant!