Banned Hashtags on Instagram

Chapter 5 of Charello’s Essentials of Social Media Marketing covers marketing with Instagram. In Section 5, hashtags are discussed. Instagram allows use of up to 30 hashtags per post. However, one should only use between five and 11 hashtags per post. Outside this range, engagement tends to drop. It is important to use hashtags on most posts. A post with a single hashtag will do more than 12% better than a similar post without a hashtag.

One potential downside of hashtags on Instagram is that there are banned hashtags. It will not harm your account if you use a banned hashtag, but it will be as if you did not make the post. This is because the post was shadow banned. When something is shadow banned, it means that it was banned, or in this case, hidden, without notification. When someone searches for a banned hashtag, no results will appear. When Instagram’s algorithm is deciding what posts to display to a user, the post with the banned hashtag will automatically be removed from the pool of potential posts. In the event that you realize that you have used a banned hashtag, simply editing the post to remove it will remove the shadow ban that was applied to your post.

It can be hard to deal with the banned hashtags since they regularly change. According to markitors.com, there are currently around 120 banned hashtags. The list includes seemingly acceptable hashtags like #happythanksgiving and #books. It also includes hashtags like #followforfollow and #likeforlike that can be used to manipulate people into engaging with a post more than they would otherwise. It also includes hashtags that can be actively harmful, like #selfharm. 

This list is not constant, though. Hashtags can be added and removed at any time. To verify that you are not using any banned hashtags, just search the hashtag on Instagram. If there are no results for a hashtag that you would expect to have results, it is likely banned. If there are results it is not banned. If there are no results but you don’t know if it should have results, for example when searching a hashtag similar to your company’s name when starting out on Instagram, it is possible that it is not banned, but simply has no posts with it. To check this, go ahead and make a post with that hashtag then search for it on a second account. If you can see it on the second account, you’re good to go. If not, edit the post and remove the hashtag.