Mastodon users often struggle to get their posts seen by people who do not follow them. Unlike algorithms on centralized platforms, Mastodon relies on hashtags and federation to surface content. Your profile bio is one of the first places new visitors check, and adding hashtags there can help the Mastodon search engine index your account … Read more
When you post on Mastodon, hashtags help your content reach users beyond your followers. But Mastodon does not accept every character you might type in a hashtag. Many users find that a hashtag with spaces, punctuation, or mixed case does not work as expected. The platform enforces strict formatting rules based on the Unicode standard. … Read more
If you follow a hashtag on Mastodon but the posts annoy you, you can mute that hashtag instead of unfollowing it. Muting a hashtag removes posts with that tag from your Home and Federated timelines. The authors of those posts are not blocked or muted themselves. This article explains how to mute a hashtag on … Read more
When you type a hashtag on Mastodon, the platform automatically preserves the capital letters you use. A hashtag like #AccessibleTech displays with the same capitalization in the post text but remains case-insensitive for search and filtering. This feature is called CamelCase or PascalCase hashtag formatting. It directly improves accessibility for screen reader users because the … Read more
When you follow a hashtag on Mastodon, posts using that tag appear in your Home feed mixed with posts from people you follow. This makes it hard to track a specific topic like “photography” or “tech news” without scrolling through unrelated content. Mastodon lets you pin a followed hashtag to a separate column so you … Read more
Mastodon server administrators often see tags appear in the Trending sidebar that do not match the community guidelines or the instance theme. Without an approval workflow, any tag that gains enough local activity can automatically trend. This can lead to spam tags, off-topic content, or hashtags that violate the server rules showing up prominently. This … Read more
Mastodon instances often display trending hashtags in the Explore section and the web interface sidebar. While trending hashtags can help users discover popular topics, instance moderators or administrators may want to disable this feature to reduce noise or limit exposure to certain content. This article explains how to turn off trending hashtags on a Mastodon … Read more
You created a hashtag on Mastodon and expected it to appear in the trending section, but it never shows up. Mastodon uses a strict algorithm to determine which hashtags trend, and many user-created tags fail to meet the required thresholds. This article explains the exact reasons why a hashtag does not count toward trending, covering … Read more
Mastodon users can follow hashtags to see public posts that include those tags in their home feed. This feature helps you monitor topics without manually searching or adding every user who posts about them. The Tag Following API exposes this functionality programmatically, allowing automation scripts to follow or unfollow tags for a given user account. … Read more
When you click a hashtag link in Mastodon, the page that opens can feel inconsistent. Sometimes you see popular posts from across the fediverse. Other times you see only recent posts from a single timeline. This happens because Mastodon offers three distinct hashtag page layouts: Top, Latest, and Subscribers. Each layout serves a different purpose … Read more