If you’re trying to your Instagram followers, you use Explore and hashtag pages to broaden your audience and reach. So it could feel more than a little disheartening when it suddenly seems like your content is not showing up anywhere.
When you feel like your posts are getting less engagement suddenly, or aren’t appearing for certain hashtags or on the Explore page, you might be shadowbanned. Here we will show you how to check Instagram shadowbanned!
What is Instagram Shadowbanned?
An Instagram shadowban refers to the act of hiding or restricting a user’s post without letting the user know that is happening. This sometimes happens when a user has violated Instagram’s community guidelines — or the content is otherwise deemed inappropriate. Once you’re shadowbanned, your post will not be shown on anyone’s feed, Explore page, or hashtag pages unless they already follow you.
Why am I shadowbanned?
There are some potential reasons your Instagram might be shadowbanned. To make sure this doesn’t occur, let’s discover some actions you might have taken that led you to be shadowbanned.
1. Use bots or automated “Instagram Growth” tools.
When you aren’t putting yourself work hard, you are not building a following authentically. Instagram frowns on this action — in their statement above, for example, they encourage people to have a strategy that concentrates on connecting with the right users. Using bots is a spammy tactic, and can lead to a shadowban.
2. Use broken hashtags.
Sometimes, a popular hashtag will become overrun with inappropriate content. When this occurs, Instagram can remove the hashtag or limit its use. When you use a broken hashtag, it’ll stop your other hashtags from ranking, and will also lead to a shadowbanned account.
3. Your account is often reported.
If users repeatedly report an account, Instagram will assume the account is posting inappropriate content or violating their phrases of service. They could disable your account, or they might shadowban it.
4. Post, Comment, partake or follow people too rapidly.
Instagram places time constraints on how often you could react to content an hour or day. This makes sense — when you are following 80 people within an hour, it is likely a robot doing the work, not human.
These actions may allow you to develop a following rapidly, however, they cannot allow you to connect with the right audience, which is why you are on Instagram in the first place. Moreover, these behaviors likely lead to shadowban, which severely restricts your exposure to a new user.
How to check Instagram shadowbanned?
There is no foolproof test to inform you when you’ve been shadowbanned on Instagram. While there are tools that advertise they’ll do exactly that, these tools aren’t reliable. Instead, try the steps below to check Instagram shadowbanned.
Test your hashtag pages.
When you look at pages of hashtags you frequently use and see a message that posts have been hidden, you may have been shadowbanned for utilizing these hashtags.
Check out the image below for the hashtag “mustfollow.” Because users reported these hashtags are not meeting Instagram’s community guidelines, so, Instagram possibly is hiding your content with this hashtag (even when yours is not in violation of any guidelines).
Test Instagram Insights.
Instagram Insights, when you discover a sudden and sustained drop in engagement, then it is possible you have been shadowbanned. One of the best metrics to look at is the percentage of accounts reached that wasn’t following you.
Check out the difference in “discovery” of the two posts below. This blogger duo went from reaching over 70K accounts, 32% of which weren’t following them, to reaching a little over 40K, of which only 4% weren’t already following them. This drop shows the bloggers that their accounts had been shadowbanned.
When you believe you’re shadowbanned, don’t worry — we have a solution for you.
How to Get Unshadowbanned
If you want to get your account back to normal, you will need to reverse the damage. Here is how:
When you use a bot or another automated service, stop and delete it immediately.
To ensure the accounts are not still attached to you, go to your Instagram on your desktop and click “Edit Profile”, and then “Apps and Websites”. When you find any bot accounts in the Active tab, choose “Remove” to delete them from your account completely.
Keep in mind that it is better to have 100 followers who love your brand and buy your products, than 1,000 followers who never purchase from you or engage with your content.
Don’t use hashtags that have been banned.
Check out Markitor’s list of banned hashtags for 2021, and ensure to remove all broken hashtags from your content. Here are some from the list:
Moving forward, be selective and cautious with the hashtags you insert, and when in doubt, check out the hashtag’s page — Instagram will likely publish an announcement like, “Recent posts from #summer2020 are currently hidden … “, which will reflect the hashtags is no longer in use.
Take a two-day break.
People have reported a full 48-hour break from utilizing their Instagram accounts could reset the system and get you back on track, and it is worth the temporary social media cleanse anyway, isn’t it?
Follow Instagram’s rules and regulations.
Follow the Terms of Use, Community Guidelines, and Recommendation Guidelines of Instagram. A quick note from these documents are:
- Only share content you made or have permission
- Don’t publish content that is false or misleading
- Do share content that is appropriate for anybody to see
How to Avoid the Instagram Shadowban
The best method to keep away from being shadowbanned on Instagram is to post useful, authentic content, and abide by best practices when building your followers. It’ll take longer to do this, however, slow and steady wins the race — and does not get shadowbanned.