Algorithm punishes you for Follow/Unfollow?

OMG IGKING LIKED MY REPLY. Did some of that blackhatworld famous just rub off on me??
 
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chad2320 said:
OMG IGKING LIKED MY REPLY. Did some of that blackhatworld famous just rub off on me??
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partying.gif
 
MPSHURO said:
I'm not a "verified source" but I firmly believe that follow unfollow destroys your shot at getting on the explore page.

When things were peachy back in the summer, (June 2015-ish) I was getting on the explore page several times a week on two of my accounts.

When things went downhill in November-ish, I was still doing follow unfollow and I wasn't getting on the explore page at all.

I stopped follow-unfollow completely in December on both accounts.

Now, in January, I'm back on the explore page with both accounts. I don't bot whatsoever, so there aren't really any other variables in the situation besides follow-unfollow.
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how long does it take when your engagement to explore page?
 
My eng even RISED these past week alot... I do follow/unfollow....

I have alot more active people commenting etc than before...


Video Before = 100-200 comments

video now ( follow/unfollow) = 200-350...


It all depends account to account

edit : As i have a business account i can track statistics...Everything is going + + + + nothing down.

I also reached very big audience this week as the statistic says..


what did i change? I started posting 2x /day instead of 1x/day
 
am12976 said:
From a logical standpoint:

If Instagram is aware of accounts using automation
and
if it has decided to penalize it
then
why would it limit the penalization to 2 functions (follow/unfollow) and not the rest (like, comment and direct)?
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Just my 2 cents, I've only ever botted to like photos (follow/unfollow is way to obvious amongst the industry heads in my niche.) and I noticed if I haven't done it for a few days and start again, I get heaps of followers for a day or so, and then it just dies.

I've found it more effective almost to bot a day here and there rather then leave it running.
 
iglover said:
I agree!

I ditched the bots 2 days ago. Been manually liking/commenting on big accounts with good engagement in my niche. [...] No engagement groups or follow/unfollow. Just good old fashioned manual work.
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So, would you recommend even for newbies with low experience on IG never ever using a bot and just do "manual work" and not to be active in engagement groups? Or would yo recommend something like "grow your account with a bot & engagement groups until you reached xxK Followers, then stop it and do the follow/unfollow method manually"?
 
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I heard the same. I hit over 2 million impressions out of no where the other day and gained 2k followers on an account with 18.8k followers. I've been doing follow/unfollow for months. However, I had never hit it even close to that before. I decided to stop following/unfollowing and I'll see if it becomes more frequent for me to get on there now. But, I still got there despite follow/unfollow apparently.

Like others said, I doubt follow/unfollow is the only factor IG looks at but it could be one. Also, it probably doesn't penalize you for botting but just following/unfollowing in general so if you do mass amounts manually, you are probably in the same position as a botter.
 
I'm pretty sure you can get punished for manual work and for botting. I believe that Instagram just looks what the average user is doing and compares it with your stats. If the average user follows 50 People a Day and unfollows 20 People a day.. your account will stick out when you Follow 750 People and then you unfollow 500 after that. Same with liking, comments and that stuff.
 
chad2320 said:
I doubt it. If its as simple as a penalty for following/unfollowing then that would be punishing those who actually try hard manually to grow their page. If it was smart enough to only penalize those who use bots it would just ban those accounts or ask for constant verification, not penalize engagement. Improperly optimized bot settings is much more likely. Luck is also a factor, some of my accounts have amazing engagement and other its just meh. All are running on bots.
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I guess luck plays a role, but I obviously don't think luck is built into the algorithms. Rather, there are probably certain factors that vary between the accounts that we may not be aware of.
 
I still follow/unfollow and I have the same engagement + increasing. I only have 7k followers and I get 1.5k-3k likes on my posts.
 
Will my account ever recover? They punished me for follow/unfollow. I don't get a shit now. 2k followers and and 10 likes after 10 mins. This is ridiculous. Before I easily had 10x likes. So is this account gone for ever or will it recover if I don't touch it 1 week or so?
 
I only notice a block for to many actions...that's it, o think they only block you more often now.

For main account growth use telegram and get the bots going for spam accounts
 
My engagement dropped after joining engagement groups.. .. . . . ooohh the irony :(

IG is so confusing right now.
 
DemiGod100 said:
My engagement dropped after joining engagement groups.. .. . . . ooohh the irony :(

IG is so confusing right now.
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I'm noticing the same thing. I have a feeling it's the fact that you basically do like for like and like hundreds of pictures in a matter of minutes. It can't look normal. I have a feeling follow/unfollow isn't causing issues but just a high volume of activity.
 
OoFap said:
I'm noticing the same thing. I have a feeling it's the fact that you basically do like for like and like hundreds of pictures in a matter of minutes. It can't look normal. I have a feeling follow/unfollow isn't causing issues but just a high volume of activity.
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which is why you don't do the likes with the account you're growing.
 
OoFap said:
I'm noticing the same thing. I have a feeling it's the fact that you basically do like for like and like hundreds of pictures in a matter of minutes. It can't look normal. I have a feeling follow/unfollow isn't causing issues but just a high volume of activity.
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Yeah I was thinking the same thing! Honestly, this has me contemplating whether to just go back to 'white-hat' for a bit - this engagement drop definitely isn't worth all those likes which do nothing for me but give an ego boost (seems the algo limits me from xplore page anyways).

imGrej said:
which is why you don't do the likes with the account you're growing.
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Oh so that's why I see some people say "D @xxx engaged with @YYY" ?
So maybe create a separate account for liking?
 
DemiGod100 said:
Yeah I was thinking the same thing! Honestly, this has me contemplating whether to just go back to 'white-hat' for a bit - this engagement drop definitely isn't worth all those likes which do nothing for me but give an ego boost (seems the algo limits me from xplore page anyways).



Oh so that's why I see some people say "D @xxx engaged with @YYY" ?
So maybe create a separate account for liking?
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exactly
 
MPSHURO said:
I'm not a "verified source" but I firmly believe that follow unfollow destroys your shot at getting on the explore page.

When things were peachy back in the summer, (June 2015-ish) I was getting on the explore page several times a week on two of my accounts.

When things went downhill in November-ish, I was still doing follow unfollow and I wasn't getting on the explore page at all.

I stopped follow-unfollow completely in December on both accounts.

Now, in January, I'm back on the explore page with both accounts. I don't bot whatsoever, so there aren't really any other variables in the situation besides follow-unfollow.
Click to expand...
Maybe your accounts are bigger now and have a larger reach and engagement to reach explorer page?
 
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