New Substack publication is adding noindex to all public posts — is this normal?
Hi everyone,
I created a brand-new Substack publication today, and I'm running into an SEO issue.
The publication is public (not in Private Mode).
The post is public (not subscriber-only or paid).
My email is verified.
robots.txt is accessible and doesn't block my posts.
However, when I inspect the page source, every post contains:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
Google Search Console reports: Excluded by 'noindex' tag
Also, my publication doesn't have a sitemap yet:
https://visaupdates.substack.com/sitemap.xml
returns: "This publication does not have a sitemap."
I've checked all the publication settings and can't find any option to enable search engine indexing.
My questions are:
- Is this normal for a brand-new Substack publication?
- How long did it take for your publication to become indexable?
- Did your sitemap appear automatically after a few days?
- Is there any setting I'm missing, or should I contact Substack Support?
Any insights from other Substack publishers would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!