Banned hashtags can affect the visibility of your Instagram account when you use them in your captions, posts and comments, but
how are you supposed to avoid them when everything from #adulting to #besties could be banned? Initially, hashtags were banned if they were deemed ‘inappropriate’, however with the influx of bots and spam accounts on Instagram’s platform, the company has started implementing
even stricter methods which has led to what might seem like ‘everyday hashtags’ being banned.
In this article, we’re going to explore what banned hashtags are, why they exist, and more importantly, how to make sure you never use them on your page.
How do you check if a hashtag is banned?
Like we said before, it can be really hard to guess or predict which hashtags are banned, not only because they are constantly changing, but also because you might not think something like ‘#beautyblogger’ would be banned when really, it is.
There are two ways that you can check if a hashtag is banned, to make sure that you avoid using them on your own posts – manually or automatically.
How to manually check:
If you know you want to use a particular hashtag but you aren’t sure if it’s banned, you can search for it in Instagram. Once you find it, you can scroll through the images in that hashtag. If it isn’t banned, you should continue to see photos as you scroll. If it is, you will eventually reach an end-point of photos, with a message from Instagram that highlights that the rest of the posts are “currently hidden, because the community has reported some content that may not meet Instagram’s community guidelines.”
However, checking each and every hashtag to see if it’s banned can be time-consuming, especially when you want to increase your potential for reach, by using a maximum of 30 hashtags every time you post. Luckily, you can also check if a hashtag is banned, automatically.
How to automatically check:
At Flick, we have recently
released a tool, that allows you to check if your hashtag selection contains any banned hashtags before you post. Let’s walk through it, step-by-step.
Open Flick, and search for the right hashtags that match the post you’d like to publish on your Instagram – more on how to find the right hashtags,
here. You can check for banned hashtags whether you are just exporting hashtags for a post, or if you are building a collection of hashtags for the future. You can also check if hashtags in a previous collection have been banned before you use them.
Once you have your selected hashtags, you can run the banned hashtag scan. This will show you which hashtags out of the ones you have selected, are banned.
Remove the banned hashtags, and replace them with hashtags that are relevant to your content, but aren’t banned. Run the scan again to make sure, and export your hashtags for use!
If you prefer to learn visually, we’ve also created a video to show you the process below:
No matter how you choose to check for your banned hashtags, it’s essential you make sure you aren’t using them, if you want your account to reach new audiences and your content to receive higher engagement levels. Hashtags are a great way to increase reach, as long as you are using them the right way! For more tips on how to use hashtags effectively, and to make sure you aren’t making any other common mistakes when it comes to hashtag use, take a look at
this article.
Click on the banner below if you want to see more about how the new Banned Instagram Hashtag Checker works!