Wanting to move my Substack newsletter to a custom domain -- but a tech novice and leery of pitfalls -- I've scoured the web far and wide over recent weeks reading every article and reddit thread on the topic I could find. I do hereby award your article Best in Show for its clarity and helpful screenshots!
I made my switch today (via a domain acquired at Namecheap) and was pleasantly surprised that Substack's initial activation happened within an hour. One thing I'd emphasize for others:
-- You may find there's a delay between when the custom domain changeover goes live, and the activation of the redirect for visitors who just type your new web address without "www." For me, it was about three hours. (In other words, during that time, www.starkrealities.net worked, but starkrealities.net didn't.)
First off, thank you. This is probably the clearest advice anyone has given here. But I am a total tech noob, so I have more questions.
I already have a domain - a good friend suggested I rent one when I started my Substack. What happens if I move there - can I still publish and mail my newsletter on the Substack ecosystem? Will it also go out from here to any new subscribers who get added after I migrate to the new domain? How does my workflow change?
Once you've added your domain, nothing else about your workflow should change.
All your pages and posts will live on the new domain. The endings won't change but never2late.substack.com will be replaced with your new domain.
All your old URLs will still work and will they redirect visitors to the new URLs. Substack will not notify your subscribers of the change but if they try to visit the old Substack URL, it will still work.
Thanks Cassandra. This is the clearest account of how to do this I could find. It still scares me (I hate mucking about with this kind of thing but apparently you can do some automation on substack using google workspace and to do that you need a custom domain. So I guess I'm heading down the rabbit hole 🥴
Thanks so much for this. This is making me more seriously consider pulling the trigger on migrating to my own domain. My subdomain is just my name, but I own both that domain and the domain of my publication’s name. But what happens to existing links between posts? Do they all break?
They will redirect to the new domain automatically. If someone puts the old post URL in, it still still load with the new URL. (I'll add this to the post!)
Wanting to move my Substack newsletter to a custom domain -- but a tech novice and leery of pitfalls -- I've scoured the web far and wide over recent weeks reading every article and reddit thread on the topic I could find. I do hereby award your article Best in Show for its clarity and helpful screenshots!
I made my switch today (via a domain acquired at Namecheap) and was pleasantly surprised that Substack's initial activation happened within an hour. One thing I'd emphasize for others:
-- You may find there's a delay between when the custom domain changeover goes live, and the activation of the redirect for visitors who just type your new web address without "www." For me, it was about three hours. (In other words, during that time, www.starkrealities.net worked, but starkrealities.net didn't.)
Thank you for creating such helpful content, Casandra. Next, I'll check out Google Search Console, per your guidance: https://www.reallygoodbusinessideas.com/p/google-search-console
Hi,
First off, thank you. This is probably the clearest advice anyone has given here. But I am a total tech noob, so I have more questions.
I already have a domain - a good friend suggested I rent one when I started my Substack. What happens if I move there - can I still publish and mail my newsletter on the Substack ecosystem? Will it also go out from here to any new subscribers who get added after I migrate to the new domain? How does my workflow change?
Kavita.
Once you've added your domain, nothing else about your workflow should change.
All your pages and posts will live on the new domain. The endings won't change but never2late.substack.com will be replaced with your new domain.
All your old URLs will still work and will they redirect visitors to the new URLs. Substack will not notify your subscribers of the change but if they try to visit the old Substack URL, it will still work.
Except this still forces your subscribers to type www.yoursitename.com. If they type yoursitename.com, it will time out.
Hey Jon, did you click enable root domain redirects for your custom domain when you added it?
Yep, just found it, thanks!
Thanks Cassandra. This is the clearest account of how to do this I could find. It still scares me (I hate mucking about with this kind of thing but apparently you can do some automation on substack using google workspace and to do that you need a custom domain. So I guess I'm heading down the rabbit hole 🥴
I definitely know that feeling! But you only have to do it once and it does unlock a lot of potential :)
New to all of this. Wouldn't I also need a website then?
You have one but right now it uses a Substack domain :) https://mithimirch.substack.com/
I mean a separate website where the custom domain link leads everyone to. Or does it still lead back to Substack.
I'm this case I'm talking about using your own domain with your Substack website.
Got it, thank you!
Thanks so much for this. This is making me more seriously consider pulling the trigger on migrating to my own domain. My subdomain is just my name, but I own both that domain and the domain of my publication’s name. But what happens to existing links between posts? Do they all break?
They will redirect to the new domain automatically. If someone puts the old post URL in, it still still load with the new URL. (I'll add this to the post!)