Tool Issues #1x01: Why Substack’s Hidden Tags Make It Harder to Use Than Medium

On Medium, tags clearly appear under each post and act as visible categories readers can use to find related articles. On Substack, tags are added in the settings panel but don’t appear on the post page at all — why?

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On Medium, when you add tags to a post, they are clearly shown under the article, and readers can click them to jump straight to other pieces with the same tag. In other words, tags function as visible categories that both writers and readers can easily understand and use for navigation. My experience with WordPress has been similar: tags are a convenient way to classify posts, and each tag comes with its own linked archive page that lists all related posts. From there, readers simply click a title and open the article they want.

Substack, however, behaves differently. You can add tags in the post’s settings panel, but they do not appear on the post page itself. There is a tag archive page at a URL like /t/tag-name, but when I’m logged in as the writer and click around, Substack often sends me back to the editor view. That makes it hard to tell whether tags are really being used on the public side or not. On top of that, the URL structure for tags is not obvious to a general reader, so they have no reason to guess that “/t/…” even exists.

As a result, even though we use the same word “tag,” it actually means different things on each platform. On Medium, tags are clearly a navigation tool for readers. On Substack, tags feel more like half‑hidden internal metadata that lives behind the scenes, and beginners have no easy way to see the difference. It’s easy to assume tags will work like WordPress or Medium, and then be confused when they don’t.

Given this situation, I’ve decided to ignore Substack’s “invisible” tag display and recreate a more Medium‑like experience manually. At the bottom of each post, I now add the tag name and a direct link to the corresponding /t/tag-name archive page, so readers at least have a clear, clickable path to related posts. The strange part is that, to confirm what a normal reader will actually see on those pages, I often have to log out or check from another device where I’m not signed in as the writer. Only then can I be sure I’m looking at the true public view instead of being bounced back into the editor.

If you’re using Substack, I’m curious: how do you use tags? Do you treat them as purely internal labels, rely on them for navigation, or work around them the way I’m doing now by adding your own links at the bottom of each post?