Banned hashtags on Instagram and how it can affect your business

Instagram, as a social network, has been particularly careful about the protection of their community. This is shown in the way they curate content and take action in cases of a report by users. They even went as far as introducing the banning of hashtags on their platform. rnCurrently, Instagram has banned over 114,000 hashtags on its platform. This is according to info published by ThePreviewApp.com. What this entails is that when you run an Instagram Search on any of the banned hashtags, it won’t bring any data up. But it doesn’t stop people from making use of the hashtag in their Instagram updates.

Some of the reasons are related to health and social issues;

The eggplant hashtag is an emoji hashtag as well as a text hashtag. The eggplant emoji is used as the closest symbol to the male reproductive organ, penis. “Sexters” and Instagram users searching for X rated content can easily run an Instagram search on the eggplant hashtag or its emoji hashtag and get lots of related content, if it wasn’t banned. People posting X rated content can also categorize them using the eggplant hashtag or its emoji equivalent, if it wasn’t banned as well. rnThe network’s strict rule against X rated content made them ban the eggplant and eggplant emoji hashtag. If you run an Instagram search with the eggplant hashtag or the eggplant emoji hashtag, you won’t find any content. rnThe hashtags #assday, #curvy, #curvygirls, #bikinibody, #beautyblogger, #date and #dating were also banned. Best guess would be the social angles there are to the type of content that usually accompanies these hashtags. If you run an Instagram search on these ones as well, you won’t find any content related to them in the Instagram Search section.

Some “normal” hashtags were banned too;

Instagram, surprisingly, also banned some hashtags a lot of people see as normal. Hashtags like; #desk, #alone, #direct, #elevator and even #ig, rnThe hashtag #snapchat was banned as well.

What does this imply for your business and general usage of the app?

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Making use of banned hashtags will not give your Instagram post any extra publicity:

rnDue to the fact that banned hashtags don’t bring up content when searched on the Instagram Search section, making use of them will not give the user any extra publicity. •

Making use of banned hashtags can affect the other hashtags on the post:

Instagram allows a maximum number of 30 hashtags on each Instagram post. Anything more than that and you won’t be able to publish the post. If you include one banned hashtag in a post having up to thirty hashtags, there is a very huge chance that the banned hashtag will affect the other hashtags, making your post not appear on the Instagram Search section even when a search about the other hashtags is done by a user. Your post will end up not getting any extra publicity. A typical shadowban. •

Making use of banned hashtags can affect the entire visibility of your account:

With continuous usage of banned hashtags (intentional or otherwise), Instagram could flag your account. This could end up in your account receiving less visibility on the Instagram Search section and other places or even getting suspended or disabled in some extreme cases. rnTo make effective use of hashtags, one must ensure that banned hashtags do not come into one’s posts on Instagram. You can always find out banned hashtags by running an Instagram Search on any hashtag you intend to use. If it brings up no related content, then it has been banned.