Indexia

INDEXIA BLOG

Index Your Substack: Turn Newsletter Archives into Searchable Knowledge

Indexia Team•

You've built a substantial Substack archive—hundreds of posts covering your expertise, analysis, and insights. But how do new subscribers discover your best work? How do you remember where you discussed a particular topic three years ago?

Indexia's web project feature lets you create a comprehensive, navigable index of your entire Substack archive.

The Newsletter Archive Problem

Newsletters accumulate differently than books. Each post stands alone, published in response to the moment. Over time, you build an incredible body of work—but it's trapped in chronological order.

Readers face challenges:

  • Discovery: New subscribers only see recent posts, missing your foundational work
  • Search limitations: Substack search is keyword-based, not conceptual
  • Topic fragmentation: Related ideas are scattered across years of posts
  • No overview: There's no map of what you've written about

An index solves all of these problems.

How Substack Indexing Works

Step 1: Gather Your Content

Export your Substack posts or collect the URLs and content you want to index. Indexia's web project feature accepts:

  • Article URLs with pasted content
  • Multiple articles in a single project
  • Mixed public and subscriber-only content (index text without revealing paywalled content)

Step 2: Create Your Web Index Project

In Indexia:

  1. Select Web Index as your project type
  2. Enter your newsletter name and description
  3. Add articles—paste the URL and full text of each post
  4. Configure extraction settings

Tip: Start with your most important 20-30 posts. You can add more later.

Step 3: AI Extraction

Indexia's AI reads through your posts and identifies:

  • Key concepts you discuss repeatedly
  • People and organizations you mention
  • Technical terms in your domain
  • Frameworks and models you've developed
  • Themes that emerge across posts

Each term links back to the specific posts where it appears.

Step 4: Curate and Refine

Review the AI's extractions:

  • Merge related terms (e.g., "machine learning" and "ML")
  • Add cross-references between connected concepts
  • Create hierarchies for major topics with subtopics
  • Remove irrelevant or overly specific terms

Step 5: Publish

Make your index public with a single toggle. Share the link with your subscribers or embed it in your Substack's welcome post.

What Your Readers Get

A published Substack index gives readers:

Thematic Navigation

Instead of scrolling through archives, readers browse by topic. "Interested in my writing on AI ethics? Here are the 12 posts that discuss it."

Text Fragment Links

Each page reference links directly to the relevant passage in your post. Readers jump to exactly where you discuss a concept.

Relationship Maps

Cross-references show how your ideas connect. "See also: regulation, safety research, alignment" guides readers to related content.

Conceptual Overview

The index itself is a table of contents for your intellectual output. Readers grasp your scope at a glance.

Best Practices for Newsletter Indexing

Choose Your Scope Thoughtfully

You don't have to index everything. Consider:

  • Evergreen posts: Skip time-sensitive takes, keep foundational pieces
  • Substantive analysis: Index deep dives, skip quick links posts
  • Original frameworks: Highlight posts where you developed new ideas

Write Extraction Instructions

Tell the AI about your domain:

"This newsletter covers technology policy and AI governance. Focus on policy concepts, regulatory frameworks, key researchers, companies, and technical terms. Ignore general news references."

Update Regularly

Add new posts to your index monthly or quarterly. Your index grows alongside your archive.

Promote It

Add your index link to:

  • Your Substack "About" page
  • Welcome emails for new subscribers
  • Social media bios
  • Pinned posts

Example: A Tech Newsletter Index

Imagine a technology newsletter with 200+ posts. The index might include:

artificial intelligence, [8 posts]
  alignment research, [3 posts]
  capabilities overhang, [2 posts]
  large language models, [5 posts]
    GPT series, [3 posts]
    open source models, [2 posts]

regulation
  EU AI Act, [4 posts]
  US executive orders, [2 posts]
  See also: governance, policy proposals

Sam Altman, [6 posts]
  See also: OpenAI, artificial intelligence

Each entry links to specific posts—and within posts, to specific passages.

Getting Started

Ready to index your Substack?

  1. Create a free Indexia account
  2. Start a new Web Index project
  3. Add your most important posts
  4. Let the AI extract, then refine
  5. Publish and share with your readers

Your newsletter archive deserves to be discovered. An index makes that possible.

Web indexing is available for all Indexia users. Start your project today.