Instagram finally working on showing real content in its search results page

A new update to Instagram and the way its search functionality works brings a long-awaited way to show relevant results to you when you search the app, reports TheNextWeb. In a blog post announcement, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri has revealed the company is now working on a "full search result page", which will make searching on the app useful and more convenient.

Instagram is working on displaying better and more complete search results

Currently, if you search on Instagram, you will be getting in the results People, hashtags, and places. However, usually searching on social media websites also shows other content such as photos, videos, and related posts to the search. Now, Instagram is working to improve its search so it would provide photos and more related information.

Here's an image of how this will work:


Although implementing this search functionality doesn't sound too complicated initially, it may actually be a bit tricky, as The Next Web rightfully underlines. It seems easy for Instagram's algorithms to find posts for specific keywords; however, it may prove more difficult to find photos that don't have the matching metadata.

Instagram has not yet received when the new search functionality will be live.

Instagram also explains how search results are ranked

Those are the text you have typed in the search bar, your activity on the app (the people you follow, posts you've viewed, how you've interacted with other accounts), and information about the search results (as in what post is popular, such as receiving lots of likes, clicks, and follows).

The blog post also adds that in order to keep Instagram as secure as possible, accounts that post spam or violate Instagram guidelines show up lower in the search results. Additionally, the search results for sensitive topics are balanced with additional safety measures.

Other recent features Instagram has included

Despite some people thinking that Instagram has gotten worse under Facebook, it is constantly working on adding new features and trying to make the social media platform more useful. Among the newly included features is, for example, the inclusion of an "Audio" section in the Explore tab of the app.
Additionally, earlier we have heard that the possibility to post from desktop to your Instagram is also in the works, with some people gaining early access to test the new feature. The testers were able to upload only photos and videos to their Insta feed, with Stories and Reels still posted only through the smartphone app.

On top of that, Instagram will be getting a new "Exclusive Story" feature, which is still under development and was first discovered by reverse engineer and full stack Android developer Alessandro Paluzzi. The feature allows content creators to post paid content, in a similar way to Twitter's "Super Follows" feature.

The "Exclusive Story" feature is still under development with no set date for a public release. Once it goes live, creators will be able to limit certain stories only to paying members on the app.

The most recent addition to the social media platform's feature is adding ads to the Shop tab. The Shop tab itself was included quite late, in 2020, and it will be getting ads. Some ads will have a "sponsored" tag, letting you know the account is promoting the ad with Facebook. Of course, despite the additions of ads, the Shop tab itself will remain the same, showing you products based on your search history and interests.