SUBSTACK 101 KICKSTART — Basics 3 — There are always things in life there is no alternative. This is one of those. What does this mean? The default setting on Substack is that you use a subdomain of Substack, e.g., substackwriters.substack.com. In this example, substack.com is the domain, and substackwriters is the subdomain. Or for SUBSTACK 101 KICKSTART, the Substack domain is s101k.substack.com. If you have chosen cookingworld for your Substack name, your domain name is cookingworld.substack.com. So far, so easy. And yes, you can change your name for your subdomain, but that is not our subject here. What does this setup mean for you? Does Substack follow the WEF agenda? I don’t know. If you use Substack for your domain, as most writers do, you might end up owning nothing. But you won’t be happy if you end there. You can’t imagine this? Substack owns your domain and every other subdomain used on Substack if it uses substack.com. Period. Is this smart? Yes, for Substack. But not for you. If whoever, whichever, and whenever, decides to end the use of the domain you use now, you can end up canceled. You don’t exist anymore on the internet. You are gone. If you have, at this point, not secured your subscriber list and not secured your content, you will end up nowhere. Nonetheless, even if you have secured it for a restart elsewhere, you will start for all search engines worldwide (DuckDuckGo, Swisscows, Startpage, and many more. I don’t mention here the internet criminals starting with G and B) from zero. All links will be gone, and all your history is worthless. And that is huge! Will this happen? I don’t know, but it is possible. Similar things have happened regularly in the short history of the internet, and that is why it is irresponsible not to be prepared for this scenario. THEREFORE, YOU MUST HAVE YOUR OWN DOMAIN! But: There is good news! It is easy to get it accomplished if you have some knowledge of the internet stuff. It is also easy for all newbies to use the 27 steps of how-to outlined below.
One more question: I know having 2 domain names leading to one website is possible. What are your thoughts on one of your pages on your business website having its own distinctive URL from the rest of the website? I am considering this - because I don't have the time to run 2 separate websites now - but I am hopeful when "the page with its own domain name" becomes popular enough, I can spin it off on its own. Thank you for any insight you may have on this!
PS...I am a talent acquisition and career services specialist, so please feel free to reach out to me to help you or your loved ones in getting past employer's digital gatekeepers or review a resume for a neutral critique. I want to be of use to you, for helping me :)
I totally support this...I am about to launch my website for the reasons you state...CONTROL, FREEDOM, & AUTONOMY.
Question: If I spend $50 to buy a custom domain and change my Substack domain to mywebsite.com/Substack page, does that mean all of the Substack traffic goes to my website? Does it also mean that my website will be designated "canonical" by Google, so when I release content of Substack - my website gets the domain authority credit - along with Substack traffic?
$50 for a domain is normally way to much because you should try to get .com, .org or .net. But you can also buy many not well-known domains cheaper.
If you buy, for instance, profit.com you must use for the redirection to Substack www.profit.com. But you can also send all traffic to traffic.com to Substack. This is explained in the guide. (Don't forget Cloudflare).
This is related to using Substack with your domain.
Your website is a different subject.
You can buy your website, for instance with dreamhost.com (my recommendation).
Do you know or have you tried doing this with a subdomain from your website? I own a domain and own free website hosting and I have a Substack. I want to host it on a separate subdomain from my website. (ie/ substack.mydomain.com or newsletter.mydomain.com or something like that.)
EDIT: Yes, in fact that is a requirement for it to be a subdomain such as www or anything else and not the naked domain. I checked their support, and answered my own question. But thanks for the discussion so that I could think about it!
Using your own domain secures you for a situation Substack is changing his rules, blocking you or simply no more existing. This happened over the years to hundreds of platforms.
It does not matter how big or small your Substack is — if you use their domain system and you cannot use it anymore, the existence of your website ends.
This is a well written summary of how to get off your substack.com and switch out to your own website! This way, you preserve your content and email list, and are independent of their internal system;)
One more question: I know having 2 domain names leading to one website is possible. What are your thoughts on one of your pages on your business website having its own distinctive URL from the rest of the website? I am considering this - because I don't have the time to run 2 separate websites now - but I am hopeful when "the page with its own domain name" becomes popular enough, I can spin it off on its own. Thank you for any insight you may have on this!
PS...I am a talent acquisition and career services specialist, so please feel free to reach out to me to help you or your loved ones in getting past employer's digital gatekeepers or review a resume for a neutral critique. I want to be of use to you, for helping me :)
I answered this under your restack.
I totally support this...I am about to launch my website for the reasons you state...CONTROL, FREEDOM, & AUTONOMY.
Question: If I spend $50 to buy a custom domain and change my Substack domain to mywebsite.com/Substack page, does that mean all of the Substack traffic goes to my website? Does it also mean that my website will be designated "canonical" by Google, so when I release content of Substack - my website gets the domain authority credit - along with Substack traffic?
That's a bit more complicated.
$50 for a domain is normally way to much because you should try to get .com, .org or .net. But you can also buy many not well-known domains cheaper.
If you buy, for instance, profit.com you must use for the redirection to Substack www.profit.com. But you can also send all traffic to traffic.com to Substack. This is explained in the guide. (Don't forget Cloudflare).
This is related to using Substack with your domain.
Your website is a different subject.
You can buy your website, for instance with dreamhost.com (my recommendation).
Then you can choose the following setup:
www.profit.com → your website — e.g., 167.55.41.3
substack.profit.com → your Substack — Substacks IP
profit.com → your Substack — Substacks IP
On day X you just have to change substack.profit.com and profit.com to your IP 167.55.41.3 and you are free.
For this, you need to know how to transfer your content, which must be regularly backed up. This will be covered in future guides.
Thank you for your detailed response. I will reread your guide and try to decipher it, as backend development is definitely not my calling card.
I will teach the people how to become prepared for independence from Substack - and anybody else.
Do you know or have you tried doing this with a subdomain from your website? I own a domain and own free website hosting and I have a Substack. I want to host it on a separate subdomain from my website. (ie/ substack.mydomain.com or newsletter.mydomain.com or something like that.)
EDIT: Yes, in fact that is a requirement for it to be a subdomain such as www or anything else and not the naked domain. I checked their support, and answered my own question. But thanks for the discussion so that I could think about it!
This Substack is running on a subdomain. Yes, it works. I would use Cloudflare.
What interface do you use to write articles? Or do you run a kind of Substack blog like Wordpress on your own site.
Is you content linked to the Substack app?
A bit confused about this.
Thank you for your question.
All my Substacks are running on Substack.
Using your own domain secures you for a situation Substack is changing his rules, blocking you or simply no more existing. This happened over the years to hundreds of platforms.
It does not matter how big or small your Substack is — if you use their domain system and you cannot use it anymore, the existence of your website ends.
This is a well written summary of how to get off your substack.com and switch out to your own website! This way, you preserve your content and email list, and are independent of their internal system;)
You are really doing great service to all substackers
Very useful advice
Thank you, please spread the news.