Instagram introduces Keyword Search & expands Guides

The latest addition and one of the major updates to impact content discovery on the platform - keyword search that would show relevant results without the specific tags has now been launched, along with the expansion of Guides on Instagram.

Keyword search on Instagram is presently available in six countries including Ireland, US, UK, and more to English-speaking users.

Previously, searching for a type of content through keywords was not an option on Instagram, users could only search for Profiles, Pages, and hashtags.

Looking up a type of content has been only possible by browsing through categories on Explore, looking up Pages or Profiles that put out that kind of content, or through hashtags. But this search experience was not optimized.

Hashtags are often filled with ample unrelated posts, populated by users engaging in clickbait, looking for engagement on their post by getting discovered through a hashtag.

Search results of accounts would restrict the variety of content for a user. For instance, a Page would only post content preferred by the admin, and through a Profile, the user would only see content created by a single creator.

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Posts in a category in Explore is limited to accounts with high engagement or similar to previously interacted with.

To tackle such problems and optimize the discovery of new content on the platform, Instagram introduced keyword search to show results that are more relevant in nature.

An Instagram spokesperson told The Verge that the company uses a number of factors such as type of content, captions when it was posted and machine learning to "find the highest quality content that’s relevant to you".

Although only certain terms will be searchable, "The search is limited to general interest topics and keywords that are within Instagram’s community guidelines", the spokesperson added.

Furthermore, Instagram Guides initially launched in May 2020, which features curated content focussed on wellness from handpicked creators and establishments, has now been expanded to everyone and the platform has made it easier to create one.

Initially, Guides only available to a handful of accounts at the present, namely @deepikapadukone, @afspnational, @heads_together, and more.