Does Instagram punish accounts for having purchased followers or engagement?

A

acer

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Apr 18, 2019
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Years ago I purchased followers and power likes on my account and I'm wondering if I should remake my account at this point. I know engagement can drop for various reasons and there's been algorithm changes etc, but I can't help but wonder if Instagram penalizes accounts that have purchased followers or engagement

Does anyone know if this is a real thing and worth starting over?

On the other hand, it seems like you could sabotage other accounts easily by buying them followers/engagement, so punishing that would be odd...
 
Matthew

Matthew

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Dec 2, 2021
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Yes, that is something that most Instagram accounts are exposed to. And it's true, the algorithm penalizes the account when it detects fake followers and likes nowadays.
 
A

acer

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Apr 18, 2019
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Matthew said:
Yes, that is something that most Instagram accounts are exposed to. And it's true, the algorithm penalizes the account when it detects fake followers and likes nowadays.
Click to expand...

Does removing the fake followers help at all? Is there a way to recover from that or do you have to just delete/abandon your account and start over again?
 
Matthew

Matthew

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Dec 2, 2021
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acer said:
Does removing the fake followers help at all? Is there a way to recover from that or do you have to just delete/abandon your account and start over again?
Click to expand...
It depends on many things, how many followers did the account have before buying the fake followers? How many people currently react or see the content of the account? If these numbers are very low, I would advise you to start with another account from 0.
 
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spicyjuice

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Dec 30, 2021
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Matthew said:
It depends on many things, how many followers did the account have before buying the fake followers? How many people currently react or see the content of the account? If these numbers are very low, I would advise you to start with another account from 0.
Click to expand...
Do you think that if I make ads I could improve my image on Instagram? (I mean if I made that mistake, could I fix it by making ads?)
 
lucid_boo

lucid_boo

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Sep 4, 2020
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spicyjuice said:
Do you think that if I make ads I could improve my image on Instagram? (I mean if I made that mistake, could I fix it by making ads?)
Click to expand...
I have seen several accounts improving after removing fake followers. However, that could be a cumbersome task, but it will be worth it. Usually, Instagram sees your engagement for the first few hours, if you have a lot of fake followers then your engagement rate naturally becomes low because Instagram would show your content to those bots' accounts as well and they will not engage. This makes Instagram feel that your content isn't engaging and they stop pushing it to the rest of the audience as well. If you remove your fake followers, that would increase your engagement and may help you resurrect your account. There are several apps available to do it.
 
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