If you can’t be found in the explore or hashtag sections of the platform, you’re shadowbanned. One way to detect a shadowban is to use a secondary account (that isn’t following you) and try to find the first account. It just takes figuring out why you were shadowbanned and making sure it doesn’t happen again.
Instagram does not shadowban people for no reason – they will penalize those who go against the guidelines of the Instagram community. Content will be shown to your followers, but your reach will not go any further. Often people notice that they are not found in the hashtag search function, or are blocked from interacting with others. You might notice that your content isn’t getting nearly the amount of attention it used to, or that you can no longer comment or like other people’s posts. If you find that your analytics for Instagram has suddenly dropped or flat-lined, then you might be shadowbanned. Shadowbans are sometimes tricky to detect because you are not always alerted to the ban – your posts stop having the same amount of reach or interaction. For instance, as a penalty for engaging or using bots, users can receive what is known as a shadowban. More recently, the platform has been cracking down on security and its effort to get rid of bots, or fake Instagram profiles. One of those tactics was the use of bots, which have been used to interact with other followers on your behalf to achieve more follows and likes from other users. Over the years, there have been several creative solutions for getting more likes and followers on Instagram.