Troubleshooting Post and Blog Visibility
We keep our search results pretty untouched — any filters we implement are related to spam and abuse prevention.
If you are looking for a post you just published, try checking Recent results. More often than not, your post is appearing in Recent rather Most Popular.
However, there are some factors affecting what appears in search results:
- Check the Visibility settings for your blog. There are two settings here.
- If "Hide [blogname] to people who don't have a Tumblr account" is enabled, the blog will not appear in Tumblr search results.
- If "Discourage searching of [your blog name]" is enabled, the blog won't appear in Tumblr searches and external search engines like Google or Yahoo will be discouraged from indexing your blog, but it is up to them to honor your request.
- Is your post an original post or a reblog? Reblogging is a great way to share a post with others, but only original posts will appear in search results.
- The first 30 tags on a post will be indexed for recent and most popular results.
- Including links in posts may affect its visibility.
- Private posts will not appear in search results.
- Blogs that are flagged as explicit will not appear in search results. If you believe your blog was miscategorized, you can appeal this decision by following these instructions.
Posting from a new blog
If you're posting from a new account, it may take a little time before your posts appear in search results. Posts from a brand new secondary blog can also take some time before appearing in results as well.
To prevent spam and other types of abuse on Tumblr, we unlock features and visibility gradually as you do things like complete your account signup, follow other blogs, like posts, and customize your blog’s appearance—basically, the more you use Tumblr, the more of Tumblr there is to use. You should have access to everything soon if you're completing these steps and using Tumblr actively.
Still can't find your own post in search or tag results? Fill out this form and we'll take a look!
Privacy Settings
If you don't want to appear in search results, you can hide your blog from search engine results (including our own) by turning on the option "Discourage searching of [your blog name]" in your blog's settings.
Note that: External search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo will be discouraged from indexing your blog, but it is up to them to honor your request.
Please see our Privacy Options for more information.
Am I shadowbanned?
Tumblr does not shadowban users, but if you feel like your ability to use Tumblr has been somehow limited, please contact support!