only recently opened iCloud files appear in Spotlight searches

Documents stored on my iCloud drive do not show up in Spotlight searches uunless they've been recently opened. This does not seem to be a problem that is solvable by re-doing the index (in the way often suggested for Spotlight issues). It seems to relate to the status of the file as it is stored on the iCloud drive when not being used. This seems a major problem for those relying on Spotlight and full-text searching of all files on one's computer. Can anyone help me here?