Banned Hashtags of 2018

The very essence of The Media Girl Creative is to share top tips and tricks on how to utilise Instagram. So I couldn’t not share this really important topic. Banned hashtags.

Hopefully you are aware of the importance of Hashtags and so I can jump right in and explain why some are banned.  Basically spam accounts tend to pick a hashtag and send lots of inappropriate or unrelated content to that hashtag resulting in Instagram blocking it.

Some hashtags might be banned forever. Think anything with a peach or aubergine emoji – those will probably fall into this category.
Some hashtags might be banned temporarily. This happens when a more innocent hashtag is hijacked and it will be banned until Instagram clear up the spam accounts.

Not to scare you out of using hashtags because they are so beneficial but using banned hashtags could result in a shadowban or worse if you are a repeat offender your account might be blocked.

Using one of the banned hashtags will mean that all your other hashtags are basically redundant and your posts won’t reach anyone other than your current followers.

There are currently over 114,000 banned Instagram hashtags.
I have put together a list of the ones that are new in 2018 below.

If you are still concerned about a specific hashtag you can find out for yourself if one is banned by following the steps below:

• In the search bar, type a the hashtag you want to check
• If the hashtag does not appear in the search results at all – it is banned
• If it appears click on the hashtag because it could be temporarily banned. If this is the case you will see the top posts but there will be nothing showing in the recent posts section

Quick tip: If you’re on your computer: Press control / command + F to find specific hashtags you might be worrying about.

List of Banned Instagram Hashtags (2018)