Do Hashtags Still Work on X?
A hashtag on X was never a feed. It is a search query with a link on top, and the one job it used to do, getting a post in front of strangers, has moved inside the ranking model.
Do hashtags still work on X? They still do what they have always done on X, which is less than most people think. A hashtag turns a word into a link to search results for that word. Tap it and you see other posts containing it. That is the whole mechanism. There is no hashtag feed to follow, no hashtag page that collects an audience over time, and nothing in X's description of hashtags that promises extra distribution.
What has changed is everything around them. The For You feed now finds audiences for posts on its own, by predicting who is likely to engage, so the job hashtags used to do for discovery is mostly done by the ranking system. X's owner told users in December 2024 to stop using them, saying the system no longer needs them. In practice, a hashtag helps when people are actively searching for a term, such as a live event, and does little otherwise.
It helps to be precise about what a hashtag is on X, because the word means something different on other networks. On Instagram, people have been able to follow a hashtag, which makes it a kind of channel with its own audience. On X there is no follow button on a hashtag. X's own help page describes the hashtag as a way to categorize posts and help them show more easily in X search, and says that clicking one shows other posts that include it.
So on X a hashtag has always been a search shortcut. For years that shortcut was one of the few ways for a post to reach people who didn't follow the author: someone searched or clicked a trending tag and found you. That bridge is the part that has been replaced. The For You feed serves posts from accounts people don't follow as a matter of course, choosing them by predicted interest rather than by tag.
That is why the question is asked with the word still. People noticed that the tags stopped seeming to matter, and they are right about the cause. It is also why chasing any single signal, tags included, is less useful than the thing the ranker measures directly: whether people who see a post respond to it. A post's public view count, the number Twitter views change, is read by people after the post reaches them; neither it nor a hashtag decides whether it reaches them.
Do hashtags still work on the X algorithm?
The For You ranking system X publishes on GitHub works by predicting what each viewer will do with a post: like it, reply, repost, open it, spend time on it, or mute and report it. It retrieves posts from outside your network by comparing representations of viewers and posts, so a post about a subject reaches people interested in that subject whether or not it carries a tag. How the X algorithm ranks posts walks through that pipeline.
In that design a hashtag is, at most, a small part of the text the system reads. It is not a separate route into feeds. There is no published mechanism by which adding a tag earns a post more distribution in For You, and X's leadership has said the system doesn't need them.
Where hashtags still do their original job is search. Someone who types or taps a tag sees posts that include it. That is useful for a narrow set of posts, and irrelevant for most.
What X itself recommends
X's help page on hashtags recommends using no more than two per post as a best practice, while allowing more. It describes them as a tool for categorizing and search, which matches how they behave.
When is a hashtag still worth using on X?
When people are searching for the tag right now. The clearest cases are live events, conferences, broadcasts, sports matches and breaking news, where many people tap or search one agreed tag to follow the conversation as it happens. A post carrying that tag appears in those search results, and for a few hours that can be a real source of readers.
It also helps when a tag is the established name for a community or a recurring conversation in your subject, the kind of tag people in that field actually search.
Outside those cases, a tag adds little. A general word turned into a hashtag, such as a tag for marketing or for photography, points to a search result so crowded that a new post disappears in it within minutes.
Does using zero hashtags perform better on X?
There is no published evidence either way, and any percentage you read on the subject is from someone's own sample, not from X. What can be said is how the mechanism works.
The ranker does not need a tag to understand what a post is about, so leaving tags off loses nothing on the distribution side. On the reader's side, a post crowded with tags reads like marketing, and people tend to scroll past what reads like marketing. Since the ranker is trying to predict exactly that behavior, whether people stop and respond, anything that makes a post less readable works against it.
So the practical rule is simple. Use zero tags by default. Add one when there is a live, searched conversation the post belongs to.
Does posting time matter on the X algorithm?
Yes, for a mechanical reason visible in the published code. Among the filters applied before ranking is an age filter, so posts drop out of consideration after a while. A post has a window, and during that window it is competing for places in feeds.
Posts from accounts you follow are fetched from a store of recent posts, which is how your followers see your newest posts first. If your followers are asleep during that window, fewer of them are in the app to see the post and respond to it, and the early responses are what give the ranker evidence that the post is worth showing more widely. Posting when your own audience is active, which your analytics can show you, gives a post a better start. There is no single best time for everyone; it depends on where your followers are.
Does the X algorithm favor vertical videos?
X has not published a preference for any aspect ratio. What the published ranking code does include is a set of video predictions, such as whether a viewer will watch a video for a meaningful amount of time, alongside dwell time on a post. Those predictions reward videos people actually watch.
On mobile, tapping a video opens X's full-screen viewer, where people can move on to more videos, and a vertical video fills that screen the way a horizontal one does not. That may make vertical video easier to watch there, which in turn may help the watch-time predictions. It is an inference from how the viewer works, not a rule X has stated, and a horizontal video people watch to the end will do better than a vertical one they skip.
What to do instead of hashtags
Write the post for the reader the ranker is trying to find. The predictions X publishes are about replies, time spent, clicks and follows, so posts that invite a response, carry specific information, or make a clear point tend to travel further than posts optimized with tags. How to get followers on Twitter goes into the kinds of posts that turn readers into followers.
If your For You feed itself is the problem, full of subjects you don't care about, the controls that matter are muting, marking posts not interested, and following accounts in your subject. How to reset the X algorithm goes through them.
And keep the two jobs apart. Tags, timing and content affect whether a post is shown. The numbers printed under a post affect how a stranger reads it once it is on their screen: a post with almost no views reads as ignored before anyone reads a word. That second job is what Twitter views and Twitter retweets are used for. They change the visible counts; they do not change what the ranker predicts about the next viewer.
Questions people ask about hashtags on X
Are hashtags dead on Twitter?
Not dead, but narrow. They still link to search results for the tag, which helps for live events and actively searched topics. They are no longer a meaningful route into people's feeds.
Can you follow a hashtag on X?
No. X has no follow button for hashtags. Tapping one opens search results for that tag. To keep up with a subject, follow accounts in it or save a search.
How many hashtags should I use on X?
X's help page recommends no more than two. In practice, zero is the default and one is enough when a post belongs to a live, searched conversation.
Does the X algorithm penalize hashtags?
X has not published any penalty. The risk is indirect: posts crowded with tags read like marketing, and readers scrolling past is exactly what the ranker learns from.
Did Elon Musk say to stop using hashtags?
Yes. In December 2024 he posted that people should stop using hashtags, saying the system no longer needs them.
Do hashtags help small accounts get discovered on X?
Only through search. A small account posting under a live event's tag can be found by people following that event; a general tag is too crowded to help.
Keep reading
- Twitter views — The count a reader sees once a post reaches them, which is the job Twitter views do; reaching them is the ranker's job.
- How the X algorithm ranks posts — The published pipeline that replaced the hashtag as the route to new readers.
- How to reset the X algorithm — The controls that change what your own For You feed shows.