Instagram posts from over 200 million professional accounts can now appear in Google Search results, marking a major shift in how travel and tourism brands reach audiences online.
Previously, content from Instagram’s business and creator accounts – such as photos, videos, carousels and reels – could only be seen within the Instagram app. Now, these posts can be found directly through Google, allowing professional travel profiles to reach people beyond the platform.
This change is expected to have a wide impact on how travel brands manage their content. Instagram is already a key channel for the travel industry, with 71% of travel brands saying it brings the most traffic and engagement compared to other social platforms. Hashtags like #travel and #vacation are used over 200 million times a month on Instagram.
“Visual Instagram content – which many travel brands today lead with – could now outrank traditional articles when they better match search intent, especially as Google’s evolving ranking systems increasingly favour engaging, multichannel content over static, keyword-heavy pages for certain terms,” said Claire Elsworth, Strategy Director at performance marketing agency Impression.
Elsworth added that travel brands should start treating Instagram like any other web page: “That means developing Social content with Search intent in mind, including writing captions, using alt text properly, and making sure hashtags actually reflect how people are looking for your products or category.”
She also advised brands to review older posts and apply the same editorial approach used on websites.
The change applies to professional accounts – classified as either business or creator profiles – which make up a large portion of Instagram users. Over 90% of Instagram users follow at least one of these accounts. The feature is turned on by default, though users can switch it off in their privacy settings.
Instagram is not the first platform to make its posts visible on Google. Tweets from X (formerly Twitter) have been searchable since 2009, and TikTok content has appeared in Google results since the early 2020s.