Instagram's Threads rolls out keyword search to India, US and others

Threads first started testing the feature in Australia and New Zealand in August, enabling people to search for posts based on specific topics on the platform

Instagram's Threads app is expanding the ability to search for keywords and topics to India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Mexico and other English- and Spanish-speaking countries.

This is part of Meta's text-based conversation app's efforts to attract more people to the platform to counter the recent decline in use.

With this rollout, the feature will be available in "most English and Spanish speaking countries", Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads.

It will be available on both Threads mobile app and the recently launched web app. The company said it plans to bring the feature to other languages and countries soon.

A screenshot of the Search feature on Threads app

Threads first started testing the feature in Australia and New Zealand in August, enabling people to search for posts based on specific topics on the platform. Earlier, Threads allowed search for user accounts only.

Users can now tap the search icon, type a keyword or phrase into the search bar and browse relevant threads.

Instagram launched Threads in July as the company's answer to rival X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The app had a stupendous start, clocking 100 million sign-ups in less than five days of its launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer product across the world. The decline in usage was also as swift in the subsequent days, primarily due to the service's limited functionality.

The company is now adding a slew of basic features to drive broader acceptance to attract new users and retain the existing ones. This includes introducing a fully functional web version, a chronological feed of posts, a following tab and a reposts tab, among others.

The service, however, still lacks basics such as the ability to support multiple accounts, an edit button, and direct messaging.

During the company's earnings conference call in July, Zuckerberg remained optimistic about Threads, saying he expected the app to become the next billion-user social network in its suite of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.

He did admit that Threads still had a "lot of basic functionality to build" and fine-tune the service to retain users. "Once we feel like we're in a very good place on that, then I'm highly confident that we're going to be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow," Zuckerberg said.