Banned Hashtags: What You Need to Know

Have you ever noticed that your post doesn’t show up in the feed? What if we told you there was a list of banned hashtags, and it’s impacting your posts? We’ll let you know what to do about it and how to know which hashtags are blocked.

1. What is a banned hashtag?

A banned hashtag is one that social media apps do not allow. This can be due to several reasons, such as:

• The hashtag has been used in spammy or inappropriate posts  (social platforms don’t want your content on it)
• A trademark infringement (Social platforms wish to nothing to do with the brand associated and blocks the hashtag)
• The hashtag has been hacked (For example, the word “follow” was used as a spammy link to follow people back in 2014.)
• A list of banned hashtags is not often made public and changes regularly. To find out if your post will show up on social media, you can do two things:  Use trial and error or use a third-party social media dashboard.
• Option #1  Use trial and error: Test out the hashtag you want to use in a post on all of your platforms, including Instagram Stories. If it doesn’t show up, try another one until you find out which ones work for each platform. This may take time, so we recommend option 2.
• Option #2: Use a third-party dashboard such as Ayrshare to determine if your post will show up. They work with you and analyze hashtags in each platform’s algorithm, and they then block ones that are not allowed, so they don’t impact your reach or promotion.

2. Why are they banned?

As we’ve mentioned, banned hashtags are released for a number of reasons. This can be anything from using spammy links to trademarks infringement and hacked accounts.

Here’s what you should know:

Hashtags that use spammy or inappropriate posts may not always show up in search results because they’re blocked by the social platform (most likely Instagram). This means that your posts won’t appear when someone searches that hashtag unless it is a popular one like #love or #tbt.

Trademark infringement often happens with celebrities, brands, and influencers using hashtags to promote their products or content. If you’re not the brand associated with the product in question, then you shouldn’t use it.

Hacked hashtags can be used to spread malware or spammy links, which is why they’re blocked by social platforms (most likely Instagram).  You don’t want your account hacked, and you definitely do not need any more spam in your feed!

3. How to find out which hashtags are blocked

You can use the trial and error method or use a third-party social media dashboard such as Ayrshare to figure out if your post will show up.  They work with you and analyze hashtags in each platform’s algorithm, and they then block ones that are not allowed; so they don’t impact your reach or promotion.

So now you know what hashtags are banned and why they’re blocked; whether it’s for your protection or the social platforms. Don’t let this block your ability to grow on social media! Use Ayrshare to find out which ones work best with each platform so you can promote effectively.

4. Ways you can still use these hashtags without being penalized by Instagram’s algorithm

There are three ways to use hashtags without being penalized by Instagram’s algorithm:

Use them in your stories- this will still show up but not in the search bar, which is where you want to be able to reach new people.

Many social media posting platforms such as Ayrshare will check for banned hashtags as you create and post content. Some will even suggest alternatives to replace the banned ones.

Use hashtags sparingly – don’t spam them everywhere because that can trigger their algorithm and cause a penalty. Even though Instagram has banned certain tags, we should never stop using hashtags.  We just need to be more aware of the tags that are safe and how they can impact our posts.

No matter what social media platform you’re on, if your account gets hacked or anything goes wrong, it’s always good to know that tools like Ayrshire will help you find the right hashtags for each social media channel.

Summary:

We hope that helps answer all of your questions about banned hashtags and how to figure out which ones are blocked.

Don’t let a list of banned hashtags impact your reach on social media. A solution will help you find the best hashtags that work with each platform, such as Ayrshire who analyzes algorithms. The in-depth analytics provided by Ayrshire will help you optimize your hashtags and find new ones, not on the banned list. As always, we want to make sure our readers get all of their questions answered; so please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below with anything else you’d like us to cover!

As always, thank you for reading our blog post.  We hope you found the information helpful!