Weird.. people can't find my username?

You are shadowbanned my friend.
Been there. You gotta wait your time, but it will be fixed. Only matter of time.

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@handle is not the account name – its @alexanderthegreat – read the first thread,

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new accounts have really no trust score – it takes few months to get it established

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But @alexanderthegreat isn’t showing either!
Only similars.

If he recently switched names, and no one else has taken the old name yet, the bann follows the account, which includes ealier used names. Until someone else takes that username. That is my experience. As mention I have tried thsi before. Bit the shadowbann is only temp. He just has to give it time.

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Showed up for me first yesterday

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right there

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In this case, this right here is true.

I managed to used another account and I foubd you.

In my case On the IG mobile app your #9 on the list for me
And in browser you are #27 on the list.

So what @Alexnvo says in this case is true. But it’s funny on the first account I tried I couldn’t fibd you at all, I scrolled all the way down.

Result from IG app:

Result from browser:

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you also used the ‘@’ at sign in the first one – that is why @alexanderthegreat – first one not alexanderthegreat

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@Alexnvo Naa I am good. It was wrong picture that I uploaded, but I did remember to remove @ . Was due to copy paste from here.

Here back at the first account, not showing up for me on this one. Here is the screen again from the first profile without @
Scrolled all the way down.

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weird – almost as if you are blocked from that account

Micky I don’t quite understand what you said here.

Let me clarify how I got the handle @alexanderthegreat.

About a month ago I had an Instagram account that was the original @alexanderthegreat. This account got flagged from doing some spam-like actions and the trust score became very bad (terrible engagement but no shadowban that I was aware of).

I was upset so I decided to start a completely new IG account on a brand new phone and IP so that I would not leave any trace to my original account with the low trust score. So, I bought a brand new phone with a new data plan and made a new IG account, but I decided to keep the handle @alexanderthegreat because I liked it so much.

So, I simply changed the name of the original @alexanderthegreat to some other @handle and then right after I did that, I created my new account on my new phone with the name @alexanderthegreat.

Now I have the problem where people cannot find my username. But I have done nothing spammy or bad with my new account. The only thing is I am using the same name. Does the low trust score become attached to the @handle? Is that why I am not showing up on the searches?

I had issues finding you with the first account I tried, but I decided to test with another one of my accounts, and as you can see, I managed to find you. HOWEVER you do not end up on top of my search list, as you should. And

In your case this pretty much explains why:

Tell people who may not be able to find you to scroll further down the list, tell them to look all the way through the list to be exact. They will find you there. Now when they start visiting your profile more often, your profile will in the future automatically end up in their top searching list.

I just tried with a third account and I found you here too, but not on the top search list, again in the middle somewhere. But your new account is there. You are good.
@alex408

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Awesome, thank you so much for the explanation @Micky I really appreciate it bro!! Cheers

Ohh definately my pleasure bro. Glad I could help :slightly_smiling_face:
@alex408

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I have a strategy to get more people to lookup my @handle so that IG will start treating it better in the search results.

What I am doing is the following: I have a large feature page 150k followers. When an account with a good amount of followers uses my hashtag or tags my large page, I send them an image with the following (see attached image):

“Thank you for tagging our page! We’d like to offer you a free story shoutout. To receive the shoutout, please share my latest post on your story from my personal page @alexanderthegreat.”

Sending this message through an image does two things I think:

  1. It makes them have to manually type in my name in the search bar to find my page
  2. It leaves no trace that Instagram can follow to see that I am using my feature account to get the shoutouts on my personal page (i.e. the story shoutouts that I get appear to be organic)

Not to mention I get a nice boost in my engagement from doing this strategy :slight_smile:

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Hey Micky, just to clarify something here because I’m not sure if I am reading your comment correctly.

Are you saying that shadowban and low trust score will follow the @handle even though I am using it on a completely new account? If that is the case, then I will probably have to start a new account with a completely new handle name, because I don’t want to start off with a low trust score or shadowban. Thoughts?

Oh, cool :slight_smile:
In addition, I also recommend creating your own hashtag.
And remove all hashes after 2-3 days and leave only your hashtag, your own.
And then people go to your photo and see that you have so many likes and more from your hashtag one.
They give this hashtag under their photos, what does it give?
Their people see the name of the user in the hashtag and type it frequently in the search option :slight_smile:

The answere here is NO my friend :slightly_smiling_face:. That was in case you chose to stick to you original account. The one which was originally shadowed, THEN you had to due your time for it to be lifted.

Once you create a new account as you have in your case and re-assign the name to the new account you are all good. Which obviously is showen by the screens I posted. If you were still shadowed, your account wouldn’t be visible to me.

So to cut this short:

Either:

  1. Wait for the shadow to be lifted by time
  2. Create a new account and take over the name of the shadowed account. <- - - This is what you did.

Once people who may be interested in your account visit your profile more and more, they will notice that you climb up in the search list.
You may be nr. 10 now, but they will realise you might become nr. 2 in a matter of some time.

Try this with a test account. You will realise how it works.

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Incredible information and advice, thank you so much for taking the time @Micky Have a great day my friend :smile:

@alex408
Look at my screen from yesterday. I had to put in your entire Profile ID for you to show up as number 27 on my list. Almost at the bottom of my searchlist. After visiting your profile a couple of times only, look at this screen from right now. I just took it.

You see… Magic :wink: after only typing in Ale, 3 words, you show up as top 3 on my searchlist.

Hope this makes sense to you now my friend