Instagram Ranking
We want to share more about how ranking works on Instagram to help people maximize their experience and help creators understand how their content can be displayed.
Instagram doesn't have a single algorithm that monitors what people see and don't see on the app. We use a variety of algorithms, classifiers, and processes, each with its own purpose. We want to make the most of people's time, and we believe that using technology to personalize everyone's experience is the best way to do that.
Each part of the app—Feed, Stories, Explore, Reels, Search, and more—uses its own algorithm tailored to how people use it. People tend to find their closest friends in Stories, use Explore to discover new content and creators, and get entertained in Reels. We categorize things differently in these different parts of the app and have added features and controls like Close Friends, Favorites, and Following so you can further personalize your experience.
How we classify feeds
Your feed is your personalized home base within Instagram, helping you stay connected with friends, family, and interests. This means your feed will feature a mix of content from the accounts you've chosen to follow, recommended content from accounts we think you'll enjoy, and ads. You'll also see a mix of videos, photos, and carousels. Like any ranking algorithm, its operation can be broken down into steps.
We begin by defining the set of items we plan to rank in the first place. With Feed, we consider recent posts shared by people you follow, as well as posts from accounts you don't yet follow that we think might interest you. We determine what might interest you based on a variety of factors, including who and what you've followed, who you've engaged with, and who you've interacted with recently. We personalize the experience to help you achieve a balance between content from accounts you follow and content from accounts you don't follow but that might interest you.
Next, we take all the information we have about what was posted, the people who made those posts, and your preferences. We also start considering other factors like format, so if we notice you prefer photos, we'll show you more photos. We call these "signals," and there are thousands of them. They include everything from when a post was shared to whether you're using a phone or the web, or how often you like videos. The most important signals in the feed, roughly in order of importance, are:
Your activity. The posts you've liked, shared, saved, or commented on help us understand what might interest you.Information about the post. This includes signals about a post's popularity (think about how many people have liked it and how quickly they like, comment, share, and save a post) and more mundane information about the content itself, such as when it was posted and what location, if any, was associated with it.
Information about the person who posted the message. This helps us get an idea of how interesting that person might be to you and includes indicators such as how many times people have interacted with that person in the last few weeks.
Your interaction history with someone. This gives us an idea of how interested you are in seeing a particular person's posts. An example is whether or not you comment on other people's posts.
From there, we make a series of predictions. These are informed assumptions about the likelihood of you interacting with a post in different ways. There are about a dozen of them. In Feed, the five interactions we analyze most closely are the likelihood of you spending a few seconds on a post, commenting on it, liking it, sharing it, and tapping on the profile picture. The more likely you are to take an action (and the more important that action is), the higher up in your Feed you'll see the post. We add and remove signals and predictions over time, working to improve the visibility of what matters to you.
There are some cases where we try to take other considerations into account. One example of this is when we try to avoid showing too many posts from the same person in a row or too many suggested posts one after the other.
We always want to let people express themselves, but when someone posts something that could endanger someone else's safety, we step in. We have Community Guidelines that apply not just to the Feed, but to all of Instagram. These rules are focused on keeping people safe. If you post something that goes against our Community Guidelines and we find it, we remove it. If this happens repeatedly, we may prevent you from using certain sharing features, like Instagram Live, and we could eventually suspend your account. If you think we've made a mistake (and we do make mistakes), you can appeal by following these steps .
In an effort to be more transparent about ranking, we recently shared our guidelines on what types of content we place lower in the Feed and Stories. This includes posts that our systems predict are likely to violate our Community Guidelines , content flagged by third-party fact-checkers (or accounts that repeatedly post this content), and posts we believe you are likely to report. These guidelines are part of our commitment to fostering a safer community and responding to direct feedback from people. You can learn more about the types of content we place lower in the Feed and Stories here .
How we classify stories
Stories are a way to share everyday moments and connect with the people and interests you care about. The stories you see are from people you've chosen to follow, as well as ads. Similar to Feed, when we analyze story ranking, we start by defining all potential stories (excluding ads) shared by the accounts you follow, and we remove stories that violate our Community Guidelines . Then, we analyze a variety of input signals, such as:
Viewing history. This analyzes how often you view an account's stories so we can prioritize stories from accounts we think you don't want to miss.Interaction history. This analyzes how often you interact with that account's stories, such as sending a "Like" or a direct message.
Closeness. This analyzes their relationship with the author in general and the likelihood that they relate to him as friends or family.
Based on these signals, we make a series of predictions about which stories you'll find most relevant and valuable (including the likelihood that you'll access a story, reply to a story, or swipe to the next one) to determine which stories appear higher in your Stories inbox. Our Community Guidelines and guidelines on what types of content we move further down the feed and Stories also apply here.
How we classify Explore
Explore was designed to help you discover new things. The grid is made up of recommendations: photos and videos we find for you from accounts you don't yet follow.
Again, the first step we take is to define a set of posts to categorize. To find photos and videos that might interest you, we analyze your past activity, such as posts you liked, saved, shared, and commented on.
Once we find a group of photos and videos that might interest you, we order them according to the level of interest we think you have in each, similar to how we categorize your Feed and Stories. The best way to gauge your interest in something is to predict the likelihood of you interacting with the post. The most important actions we predict in Explore include likes, saves, and shares. The most important signals we look for, in approximate order of importance, are:
Information about the post. Here we analyze the popularity of a post. This includes signals such as how many people like, comment on, share, and save a post, and how quickly. These signals are much more important in Explore than in the Feed or Stories.Your activity in Explore. This includes signals such as the posts you've liked, saved, shared, or commented on, and how you've interacted with posts in Explore in the past. If you interact with a specific type of post, we try to show you more content similar to the original post you interacted with.
Your interaction history with the person who posted the post. Chances are the post was shared by someone you've never heard of, but if you've interacted with that person, it gives us an idea of how interested you might be in what they shared.
Information about the person who posted. This includes signals such as how many times people have interacted with that person in recent weeks, to help find interesting content from a wide variety of people.
Most of the content you see in Explore is from people you don't follow, which changes things when you encounter something problematic. If a friend you follow shares something offensive and you see it in your feed, that's between you and your friend (and you have the option to unfollow, block, mute, hide, or report them if you wish). However, we want to reduce the likelihood of you seeing anything offensive in Explore, as it's content we recommend from people you haven't yet chosen to follow.
That's why, in addition to our Community Guidelines , we have rules about what we recommend in places like Explore, Reels, Search, Suggested Feed Posts, and Suggested Accounts. We call these our Recommendation Guidelines. Posts that go against our Recommendation Guidelines are allowed on Instagram, but some people may find them sensitive or offensive. For example, we aim not to recommend things like content that depicts violence, such as people fighting, or content that shows the use of certain regulated products, such as tobacco, vaping products, or pharmaceutical drugs.
If someone's post violates our Recommendation Guidelines , we try to avoid showing that post when we recommend content. If an account repeatedly posts content that violates our Recommendation Guidelines or Community Guidelines , none of its posts will be eligible for recommendation for a period of time. Account status is the best way to find out if your account and content are eligible to be recommended on Instagram. You can read more about account status in the sections below.
Over the years, we've added new controls so you can influence the types of content we recommend to you, such as the Sensitive Content Control and the ability to mark "Not interested" next to posts; you can read more about these controls in the sections below.
How we classify Reels
Reels are also designed to help you discover new things, with an emphasis on entertainment. Just like in Explore, most of what you see comes from accounts you don't follow. That's why we go through a very similar process where we first search for Reels we think you might like and then rank them based on how interesting we think they'll be for you.
To find entertaining reels, we survey people and ask if they find a particular reel worthwhile or funny, and we learn from the feedback to improve our ability to determine what will entertain people. The most important predictions we make are the likelihood that you'll reshare a reel, watch it all the way through, like it, and go to the audio page (an indicator of whether you might feel inspired to make your own reel). The most important signals, roughly in order of importance, are:
Your activity. We observe aspects such as the reels you've liked, saved, shared, commented on, and recently interacted with. These signals help us understand what content might be relevant to you.Your interaction history with the person who posted the video. Just like with Explore, the video was probably made by someone you've never heard of, but if you've interacted with that person, it gives us an idea of how interested you might be in what they shared.
Information about the video. This includes details about the video's content, such as the audio track or images, as well as its popularity.
Information about the person who posted. We take into account signals of popularity, such as the number of followers or the level of engagement, to help find engaging content from a wide variety of people and give everyone the opportunity to find their audience.
The same recommendation guidelines that apply to Explore also apply to Reels. Our goal is to make certain Reels less visible for other reasons, such as low-resolution or watermarked Reels, muted Reels or Reels with borders, text-heavy Reels, Reels that focus on political issues , or Reels that have already been published on Instagram.
How you can influence what you see
The way you use Instagram greatly influences what you see and what you don't. You can help improve the experience simply by interacting with the profiles and content you enjoy, but there are some more explicit things you can do to influence what you see.
How you can influence what you see
The way you use Instagram greatly influences what you see and what you don't. You can help improve the experience simply by interacting with the profiles and content you enjoy, but there are some more explicit things you can do to influence what you see.
Personalize your feed and stories
Add accounts to your Favorites list to make sure you don't miss their content. New posts from your Favorites will appear higher in your Feed. You can also customize your feed to only show content from your Favorites or the accounts you follow (Following will show you the last 30 days of posts from the people you follow in chronological order).If you just want to take a break from recommendations, you can also snooze all suggested posts in your feed for 30 days. Learn more here .
Choose your close friends. You can select your close friends for Stories. This was designed so you can share only with the people closest to you.
Mute people you're not interested in. You can mute feed posts, stories , messages , or notes from an account if you want to stop seeing what they share but don't want to unfollow them completely. This way, people won't know you've muted them.
To stop seeing posts from an account, you can unfollow it at any time. People won't receive any notification when you unfollow them.
Take Instagram surveys. We send surveys to people to ask if this post is worth their time, and we use the results of these surveys to improve our overall recommendations.
Improve your recommendations
Adjust the Sensitive Content Control if you want to see more or less of certain types of sensitive content from accounts you don't follow. The "more" option is not available to people under 18.While we do our best to recommend content we think you'll enjoy, we don't always get it right. To help us improve, you can mark a recommended post as "Not interested" so we can show you less content you might not like. We're also testing an option for you to mark a recommended post as "Interested" so we can show you more content you might like.
Proactively hide suggested posts with captions that contain words, phrases, or emojis you don't want to see.
Report content you believe violates our policies using our reporting tool . You can report any post or profile on Instagram. This can help us lower the ranking of similar content across all Instagram platforms.
Finally, if you're ever curious about why you're seeing specific content, you can tap the three dots in the top right corner next to the content and then tap "Why you see this post/ad." Below, we'll list some of the signals used to show you that content.
How to address “shadowbanning”
Finally, we want to address the feedback we've received about "shadowbanning." We've had many direct conversations with our community to better understand what people mean by the term "shadowbanning." While there isn't a single, universally accepted definition, we know that some people use the term to imply that a user's account or content is restricted or hidden without a clear explanation or justification. When we categorize content on Instagram, that is not our intention.
Contrary to what you may have heard, as a company, we're invested in ensuring creators can reach their audiences and be discovered so they can continue to grow and thrive on Instagram. If there's an audience interested in what you share, the more effectively we help that audience see your content, the more they'll use our platform. While we've heard some people believe that paying for ads is necessary to achieve greater reach, we don't suppress content to encourage people to buy ads. It's a better business model to make Instagram more attractive overall by increasing the reach of those who create the most engaging content and selling ads to others.
Community concerns about shadowbanning have made it clear that we can do more to increase transparency, so people have more information about what's happening with their accounts. If something is making your content less visible, you should know and be able to appeal. That's why we've created features like Account statement to help you understand why your account content may not be eligible to be recommended, allow you to remove any content that affects your account, and appeal the decision if you believe we made a mistake.
We continue to invest in account status to provide greater transparency to our community. For example, we recently added the ability to see if your account is eligible to appear in Search or as a suggested account, and you can appeal if it isn't. We plan to add even more transparency to this section over time, so stay tuned.
We're always exploring ways to help creators understand why certain content, like Reels, isn't reaching as many people who don't follow them. We're experimenting with new notifications to help creators understand when their Reel's reach might be limited by a watermark, and we plan to expand to more people as we discover what works best.
As we continue to create more tools to help people understand and address issues that may affect their reach, we've been working on more resources to help our community understand our classification, guidelines, and best practices. Check out our New resource to improve your reach on Instagram Learn from other creators in our Creators Lab and get even more details about the standings with our interactive site In addition to keeping an eye on our blog for posts like this, be sure to follow us! @creators and @mosseri to get the latest and best tools and advice.
We want people and creators to have control over their Instagram experience, and we're always exploring ways to add even more transparency and control to the app. Providing more context about how content is ranked and moderated on Instagram is just one part of the equation, and we'll continue to provide ranking updates as our systems evolve.