What is the Instagram shadowban?
The Instagram shadowban. It might have happened to you. Have you ever experienced a mysterious fallback of likes and comments on your posts? Then you might have fallen victim to the Instagram shadowban. There are 4 simple signs you need to check to see if you are shadowbanned.
Have you noticed a sudden:
- drop in comments
- drop in likes
- drop in impressions
- drop in reach
In case you haven’t completely changed your content, but you did experience this drop in statistics it’s very likely you’re shadowbanned.
What is the shadowban
In simple words: the shadowban blocks your post from the platform, without notifying you.
The negative effects
Instagram won’t completely block your post. Your followers can still see your content, but it will be hidden from users who don’t follow you. Why is this such a bad thing? Well, this has major consequences for the growth of your account. Since only your current followers are able to see your post, you won’t attract any new followers because Instagram will never show your content on the explore page of people who don’t follow you.
It obviously also affects the reach of your content. Because of the shadowban, Instagram will also block your hashtags. Meaning your post won’t be shown in the search results of people who are looking for hashtags you’ve used. This completely defeats the whole purpose of using strategic hashtags to grow your reach.
What causes a shadowban
Getting shadowbanned is one of the worst things that can happen to you, so the key is to know why it happens and how you can avoid it. So what can cause a shadowban? The shadowban is implemented by Instagram when they think users are showing spammy, inappropriate or abusive behaviour. One of their ways to find these inappropriate posts is checking the hashtags that are used in a post. So if you are using the hashtag #suicide for example, you are practically asking for it to get shadowbanned.
Besides these obvious hashtags, there are also a lot of normal looking blacklisted hashtags like #sunbathing. Making sure you don’t use the wrong hashtags by accident is another way to avoid the shadowban.
That is why we’ve created a list of all the blacklisted hashtags here.
Use this article to simply check your hashtag. Simply use cmd + F on your Mac or Ctrl + F on your windows computer and type in the hashtag you want to use. If the hashtag is on the list, it means the hashtag blacklisted so please don’t use it. If it’s not on the list you’re good to go.
