What is the Explore page?

Instagram’s ranking explainer names four signals for Explore and lists them in order of importance.

1. Post popularity: how many people, and how quickly, like, comment, share and save the post.
2. Your activity in Explore: what you have liked, saved, shared and commented on, which guides what similar posts appear.
3. Your history with the creator: past interactions with that account hint at interest.
4. Creator information: signals like follower count and engagement levels help bring in a variety of creators.

So there are two sides to it. A post has to be popular enough with the people who see it first, and it has to match the interests of the person looking at Explore.

Instagram separates its Community Standards from its Recommendation Guidelines. A post that breaks the first is removed. A post that only breaks the second stays up and is simply not recommended. Instagram’s examples of that include violence and certain regulated products such as tobacco, vaping products or pharmaceutical drugs.

If your posts stopped appearing in discovery, the Account Status tool in your settings shows whether any are ineligible for recommendations, and lets you appeal.

• The first hours matter. Because Instagram counts how quickly people engage, a post that gets early saves and shares has a better start than one that gets the same total over a week.
• Saves and shares count as well as likes. A post people keep for later or send to a friend is giving Explore a stronger signal than a quick double tap.
• Comments are a signal, and a comment-to-DM post collects them. Instagram doesn’t say whether it weighs a comment triggered by a keyword differently, so treat it as one input among several.
• Follower count is only one input. Instagram lists creator information, which includes follower count and engagement levels, as the fourth signal, so a small account can appear.