What Meta actually says
about paid links.

Why this guide sticks to what is published

There is a lot of confident advice about Instagram and paid links. Most of it is somebody's experience presented as a rule. Meta rarely tells an account which signal it acted on, so nobody outside Meta can say for certain why a given account was restricted.

This guide only covers what Meta has written down in public, and says clearly where that stops. You can read every source yourself on Meta's Transparency Center and in Instagram's Help Center.

Two sets of rules, not one

Meta has two separate rulebooks that matter here, and mixing them up causes most of the confusion.

• The Community Standards decide what is allowed on Facebook and Instagram at all. Breaking them can get content removed and, if it keeps happening, accounts disabled.
• The recommendation guidelines decide what Meta will suggest to people who do not follow you, in Explore, Reels and suggested accounts. They are stricter. Content can follow the Community Standards and still not be recommended.

Most creators who say they were "shadowbanned" are describing the second: the account is still up, but it has stopped being recommended.

What the Community Standards say

The Community Standards include a policy on adult sexual solicitation and sexually explicit language. It covers content that offers or asks for sexual services or sexual material, and content that points people to where they can get it. Meta's published text lists things such as contact details and links to adult websites among the signals it looks at, usually together with other signals such as sexual language or imagery.

There is also a separate policy on adult nudity and sexual activity, which covers images and video directly.

Read together, they describe an association: a profile that presents itself as a way to buy adult content. A link is one way that association is made. It is not the only one, and the text does not say a link on its own breaks the rules.

What the recommendation guidelines say

Meta's recommendation guidelines list content that may not be recommended even though it is allowed. Sexually suggestive content is on that list. So are accounts that have recently broken the Community Standards.

This is the rule that affects most creators day to day. A suggestive profile photo, grid or Reel can make content, or the whole account, ineligible for recommendation. Your followers still see you. New people mostly do not.

How to see where your account stands

Instagram has a screen for this. Open Settings, then Account Status. It shows whether your account can be recommended to non-followers, and lists content that was removed or limited, with a reason.

If something is listed that you think is a mistake, Account Status lets you ask for a review. Do it. It is the only feedback Meta gives you directly, and it is more reliable than any outside guess.

What Meta does not say

Meta does not publish:

• a list of link domains that trigger a restriction
• whether link pages are treated differently from direct links
• how much any one signal weighs against another
• which signal it acted on for your account

So be wary of anyone who tells you a specific number of links, a specific domain or a specific word will get you restricted. They may be right by coincidence. They cannot know.

What you can control

Given what is published, a sensible approach is to remove the readable association wherever you can.

• Keep your bio text, profile photo and grid within the recommendation guidelines.
• Do not put a paid adult address directly in your bio.
• Use a link page that keeps the destination out of its code, with no preview card naming you. You can check any page with the free scanner.
• Check Account Status regularly and appeal anything that looks wrong.

None of this is a guarantee. It is the part you can measure. For the causes that are not about links at all, read why Instagram restricts creator accounts.