Instagram Banned Hashtags

Check for Banned Instagram Hashtags

What are Instagram banned hashtags?

Using relevant hashtags on Instagram can boost your engagement and get your Instagram photos in front of many more people. And it also helps Instagram understand what your content is about so it can show it to the right audience.

But not all hashtags are good. Banned hashtags are ones that have been flagged/reported by the Instagram community for a few different reasons.

The first obvious reason is that the hashtag is obscene and people are posting things that are against Instagram’s community guidelines. You will see many of these in our banned hashtags list.

Another reason is that those hashtags have been used by bots and spammers who like to post to those hashtags repeatedly (that’s called SPAM).

So, the reason why you need to avoid using banned hashtags at all, is that Instagram could flag your account as a spammer or as being against their community guidelines.

And this, unfortunately, might result in a shadowban of your account. A shadowban on Instagram means they have limited your account (temporarily), effectively bringing your reach and engagement to almost zero. You might be shadowbanned if you see your hashtags are getting zero engagement, for example.

How to check if a hashtag is banned?

We have built our banned hashtag checker tool so that you can simply paste your hashtags and check. And if you use our related hashtag generator, it will alert you when it finds banned hashtags.

We also maintain a complete list of banned hashtags that is updated daily automatically.

Some hashtags are banned forever and some others only for some time.

If you want to manually check if a hashtag is banned, you can visit the hashtag page either on desktop or on your Instagram app, and you will see that only a few top posts are shown.

You will also see a notice across the top or bottom that says “Recent posts from #hashtag are currently hidden because the community has reported some content that may not meet Instagram’s community guidelines. Learn more”

Can banned hashtags get you shadowbanned on Instagram?

Yes, as we explained above, they can.

Banned hashtags are banned because they are either being spammed by bots or they are against Instagram’s community guidelines.

So, if you use banned hashtags, Instagram’s algorithm might think you are a bot, a spammer, or against their standards.

We recommend you avoid banned hashtags at all costs.

What to do if you have used a banned hashtag?

First, don’t panic. If you have been shadowbanned it is only temporary and it could last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

You should check your posts for banned hashtags and remove those posts or at least remove the banned hashtags from the posts.

Even if you are shadowbanned, you should keep on posting, because your followers will most likely still see your posts, and because IG’s algorithm doesn’t really like it if you stop.

Can I share this list of banned hashtags?

Yes, definitely. And you can even repost it in your blog. But if you do, we ask you to please include a dofollow link to this page to give us credit, and because this is the only list that is updated every day.

Some blogs have outdated lists with banned hashtags that are no longer banned.