Instagram Shadowban and Potential Solutions for 2025

Whether you are an overseas person engaged in cross-border e-commerce, an Internet celebrity committed to shaping a public image, or an individual user who engages in private sharing, you may encounter traffic restrictions caused by shadowban in the process of operating Instagram, which is extremely detrimental to the exposure of account content.

What are the reasons for Instagram account traffic restrictions? How to prevent and solve them? This article may help you.

Ⅰ. Determine whether Instagram is restricted

1. Determine content visibility

Choose a popular and an unpopular hashtag, post a message for each, and ask people around you (preferably fans and non-fans) to use their own accounts to search for the recent pages of these two tags to see if there are any posts you just posted. If other users cannot see these two posts, it is likely that they have been restricted.

2. Analyze account data

If the interaction data (such as the number of reposts, likes, and comments) of recent content is much lower than previous levels, it may also be due to traffic limiting.

If you want to see more detailed data changes, you can switch the account type: Switch to Professional Account, and then you can view Instagram Insights or Professional Dashboard from your profile page. These two features can help you better analyze account performance.

3. Check account status

This method also requires switching to a professional account: Settings—Account—Account status. If there are reasons and factors that affect the normal status of the account, this function will prompt you.

Ⅱ. Reasons for Instagram traffic restrictions

1. Improper use of hashtags

Do not use too many tags in one post, and do not use restricted tags. Some content under some hashtags will be restricted or hidden. It may be that there are too many contents in these hashtags that do not comply with the platform rules, which affects the content under the entire hashtag.

Some hashtag interfaces will clearly inform users that the content will be hidden, while others will not. Given that the list of invalid hashtags is constantly changing, it is best to keep a close eye on the latest information.

2. Violation of platform regulations

Post inappropriate content, such as violence, discrimination, false and fraudulent information, spam, etc.

3. Purchase fake traffic

Using automated tools or robots to generate false data, such as the number of fans, followers, reposts, comments, and likes, is an act that disrupts the platform's ecology and order, and is also easy to detect.

4. Operations are too frequent

Following, unfollowing, liking, forwarding, commenting, or commenting on the same content in large numbers within a short period of time may be identified as abnormal behavior.

5. Reported many times

If an account is frequently reported by multiple users, the platform will consider that the account poses a risk of disrupting order and may not only be restricted but also banned.

6. Frequent IP changes

It is easy to have problems when using Instagram devices and IPs that are unstable or frequently changed. For example, using a free IP shared by multiple people is more risky because it is easy to be associated with or even overlap with a marked IP, which is very likely to be judged as abnormal and lead to traffic restriction.

Ⅲ. Solution

1. Compliance operation account

Improve your Instagram account information and make sure it is distinct from other accounts.

Maintain a certain level of activity, such as logging in every day, publishing original content that complies with platform regulations, and interacting with other users, but do not perform frequent operations in a short period of time.

Do not use any robots or automation tools to generate fake traffic to your account.

Consider temporarily hiding or directly deleting the restricted content.

2. Use a reliable network

Basically, all platforms have their own IP blacklists. If a user violates the rules, the IP used by the user will be marked. Overlapping or associating with the marked IP will inevitably have an adverse impact on the account. Therefore, it is very important to choose a high-quality IP. You can use IPFoxy, which has a large number of exclusive clean IPs and different regional options, which can easily meet the needs of social media operations, and has good connectivity and stability.

3. Disable or seek official help

You can try to deactivate the restricted Instagram account first, then slowly resume using it after a few days, and observe whether the account data gradually returns to normal. If all possible reasons are not effective after checking, you can explain the situation to the platform officials and seek help.

Ⅳ. Final Thoughts

Instagram restrictions have a great adverse impact on account operations. Compliance operations and the use of reliable network tools can basically solve most of the flow restriction problems.