What E-Commerce Brands Need to Know About Instagram Google Results

The way people search and discover new products and brands is always in flux.

Social media plays a significant role as Instagram, TikTok, and others aren’t just for browsing anymore: They’re a complete beginning-to-end shopping experience. That’s why an ROI-driven social strategy is crucial for all businesses.

In July 2025, Meta gave businesses another reason to take their social strategy seriously by making a policy change that allows Google, Bing, and other search engines to index Instagram profiles and posts.

For the first time, your Instagram posts can compete with product pages, news stories, and other Google results. This means your social content is now part of your Organic Search.

Here’s what you need to know about Google indexing Instagram posts, how this change affects you, and what your brand should do to capitalize.

Yes, for the most part.

On July 10, 2025, Meta changed its policy and now allows Google, Bing, and other search engines to index profiles and posts.

However, this change doesn’t affect every single profile and post on Instagram.

To be indexed by Google, the user must meet the following criteria:

This only applies to public posts uploaded on or after January 1, 2020. Additionally, users can opt out of having their profile and posts indexed in their privacy settings.

All these qualifications aside, this change means users can now web search Instagram profiles and posts and will see these links next to articles, product pages, and other search results.

The simple answer is visibility.

To succeed online, your brand must be everywhere, from social media to Organic Search to voice search. Users still find products on Google Search, but they also shop directly on Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms.

An omni-channel approach is vital so you can connect with shoppers at every stage of the funnel across every online surface, whether they’re on your profile or search Instagram posts on Google. Think of every channel working together to achieve the same goal: driving sales and revenue.

Now that Instagram posts are indexed and served in SERPs, social media marketing isn’t just about likes and follows anymore; your posts have the potential to reach shoppers in even more places.

This update is mostly good news for brands, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t carry some risks.

Specifically, you must be methodical in your approach to social media marketing moving forward.

What you post on Instagram won’t just stay on Instagram, as it will live next to your competitors in Organic Search, so you need to make a good first impression to searchers and ensure your posts align with their search intent.

Luckily, you have control over all of this; you just need to conduct a thorough profile audit to ensure your posts are up to date, aligned with your current brand standards, and thoughtfully crafted to satisfy search intent.

Capitalizing on Instagram Google results is a forward-thinking, ongoing process. However, you can take a few steps right now to optimize your profile and ensure your posts deliver value in SERPs and on Instagram.

First things first, it’s time to take your Instagram account seriously.

Whether you’re active on the platform, use it to post one-off memes, or haven’t posted in months (or even years), you should do an audit.

Make sure your profile accurately reflects your brand in its current state. Remove old taglines in your bio and archive outdated posts referencing past promotions or discontinued products.

These posts make your account feel fuller, but they aren’t actually helping you. The same goes for imagery that doesn’t reflect your brand any longer.

Keep in mind that only posts from January 1, 2020, and onward can be indexed by Google, but it’s still a good practice to archive older, outdated posts anyway.

Think of it like going through your closet and getting rid of clothes you haven’t worn in years. With these outdated posts out of the way, you can start anew, putting your brand’s best foot forward on Instagram and in SERPs.

Don’t forget about the links in your bio either. These should be clear and purpose-driven, directing users to your blog, valuable product pages, or other areas of your site. If the current links go elsewhere or you don’t have any links, now is the time to fix it.

After this audit, your Instagram should feel more like your brand.

The bio should be captivating and encapsulate your brand's best qualities, giving users a good impression of what they can expect from your posts and your website.

Stop thinking about your Instagram profile as a siloed, separate entity. It now works hand in hand with your Organic Search strategy, and you should approach it with the same careful, intent- and keyword-driven mindset.

Many of the same SEO best practices apply, but you might need to tweak them a bit to ensure your posts are still relevant and valuable to a social media audience.

Keywords are still important for SEO and should be incorporated into your Instagram strategy moving forward. Include intent-driven keywords in your captions, profile bio, and as hashtags.

Ensure they’re relevant to the post itself, and avoid stuffing or forcing them, which could hurt your brand’s natural voice.

Start with the user’s intent (commercial, navigational, informational, or transactional) and determine which of these your post serves. Use this to guide your keyword strategy and copy.

Adding image alt text is beneficial for users and search engines. It helps search engine crawlers better understand the content within the image, while ensuring your posts are accessible to people using screen readers.

Before, your Instagram content had a short lifespan before it was buried in users’ feeds. Now, they can find posts from months or even years ago directly in Google SERPs. That’s why a renewed focus on posting evergreen content is a must, since you don’t know how highly or how long a post could rank in valuable SERPs.

This doesn’t mean you need to abandon time-sensitive posts altogether. You should still announce sales, new product launches, or other company events, but make sure to edit the caption or archive the post once it’s no longer relevant.

Google wants to rank helpful content highly, and along with your blog and product pages, your Instagram posts now fall into this category. If you want your profile to appear in valuable SERPs, you need to post with a people-first mindset and effectively demonstrate E-E-A-T.

Your posts should help people solve a problem, provide information about your products, or demonstrate your authority in the industry.

The goal is to give people a reason to click on your post within Google SERPs and also engage with your posts.

By further integrating your Instagram account into your overall content strategy, it will become yet another vehicle to establish your brand’s authority, prove your expertise, highlight your unique selling points, and drive visitors to your website.

Omni-channel marketing is the only way to compete, and it’s been a core part of our approach since day one. We’ve helped brands align their social media and Organic Search strategies for years, and this new change reinforces this tactic.

With a world-class content team and paid social experts, we’re ready to help you capitalize on every emerging search trend and shift in consumer behavior.

Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help your brand grow with our proprietary New Revenue Modeling tool.