Tired of the endless, meaningless hashtag lists under Instagram posts? The social media giant has taken a radical step to improve user experience and prevent spam. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri officially announced the start of a new era on the platform, introducing a hashtag limit.

A maximum of 5 hashtags will be allowed

Mosseri, who dropped the bombshell with his announcement on December 19th, stated that it will no longer be possible to use an unlimited number of hashtags in a single post. The platform is limiting the number of hashtags per post to five. In a statement on his own channel, Mosseri said:

“I know it might be tempting to use more, but a small number of specific hashtags actually perform better than a long, general list. The key here is quality, not quantity.”

The most striking part of Mosseri’s statement was the hint he gave about how the algorithm works. According to the executive, hashtags help users find your content in search results, but they don’t directly increase your reach. The advice given to users is to focus on creating high-quality content that resonates with your audience, rather than relying solely on hashtags.

Meta is implementing a similar cleanup operation on its other platform, Threads. To prevent hashtag spam, Threads users were only allowed one hashtag per post. Mosseri stated at the time that this design was intended to steer hashtags away from engagement manipulation and towards genuinely community-focused topics.

It seems Meta is increasing restrictions to rid its platforms of clutter. So, do you think this Instagram hashtag limit is a good decision? How many hashtags do you usually use in your posts? Share your thoughts in the comments!