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Almost one year ago I had the pleasure of meeting two Pinterest employees at Mom2.0, a conference for bloggers. A small group of us stayed after the session and had the opportunity to “get real” with them and chat about some things that were on bloggers’ minds such as stolen pins, rich pins, Pinterest best practices, and more.
This relationship has been an honest and open door that we have kept up since the conference and in light of recent Pinterest changes, I asked for some clarification and solid numbers for bloggers. As I’ve mentioned to Pinterest, bloggers will follow the rules if you give them rules–but you have to give them specific rules.
I have had multiple meetings with Pinterest over the last few weeks and given a lot of feedback to them from bloggers about some things that are happening at Pinterest. I feel that they are beginning to understand where we are coming from and as more information comes out, I’ll update this post for you.
I co-wrote this post with my Pinterest rep. Pinterest asked that I post this on my blog for bloggers to see–originally we discussed posting it in Facebook groups but decided it was easier to read and save if it was on a blog.
What is considered Spam on Pinterest?
Pinterest users are reporting that seeing a board with the same Pin multiple times (even if that is over the course of many months) is spammy, AND they’re reporting those Pins and boards.
In order to not be considered spam (and have your account shut down):
1. Don’t Pin the same Pin to the same board multiple times.
2. Click through Pins to make sure that you’re not Pinning a Pin that leads to a spammy site. You can also test to see if a link is spammy using these tips: (website removed)
3. Make sure the Pin image is relevant to the webpage it’s linking to.
4. Sites with pop-ups, sites that are very heavy on ads, and sites that have a slow load time are considered spammy.
Note: Account suspensions don’t happen with one “negative action.” There are usually several strikes against your account by the time your account is reviewed and suspended.
Are duplicate pins ok on Pinterest?
I explained that as bloggers with a ton of posts and Pins, we repin often. And of course, more repins = more website visits = more money for us, so more is better for bloggers and we really need specifics.
Pinterest explained that our boards should not have duplicate Pins. A few times is ok, but if a regular person would look at your board and notice the ‘same pin,’ then it’s getting risky. They will take into consideration things like Tailwind glitches (like when Tailwind Pinned duplicate Pins for all of us at the end of last year).
Approved Schedulers for Pinterest
This can’t be said enough: do NOT use unapproved schedulers. If the scheduler asks for your username and password, it is a security risk and you shouldn’t be using it. If it’s an approved scheduler, it’ll have a popup that brings you to the Pinterest site and asks you to approve the app (oAuth).
You can find a list of all approved Pinterest partner tools right here.
Long vs Short Pins on Pinterest
The tall giraffe Pins are slowly losing traction and are losing distribution. Anything longer than 2:3 will be in danger of being cut off (think about the tilted Pins on the business profiles–if it’s getting cut off there, it’ll also show up cut off in other places in the same way).
Pinterest gave us a warning about this way in advance (like, two years ago), so that we could change our image layouts. The changes are still in progress and the 2:3 aspect ratio will continue to be emphasized.
Do Pin and board descriptions matter?
Descriptions make your Pins and boards more useful to Pinners and help with distribution. We recommend adding descriptions to all your boards and Pins, along with descriptive titles.
Does categorizing boards help with SEO?
Yes, categorizing your boards does help with search engine optimization. To edit your board category, just click or tap the pencil icon in the lower right corner of your board, then select select the category that best represents your board.
How does Pinterest use keywords? Should I include them in my descriptions?
Yes! Good keywords will help your content get to the right audience and give helpful context to Pinners. Pro tip: Try out a search yourself to find out what results show up with certain keywords.
What’s the difference between keywords and hashtags? And when should I use each?
Both keywords and hashtags make your Pins easier to find. Keywords help with search and give important context about your Pins and boards to Pinners. Adding hashtags helps Pinners discover your Pins. Each hashtag you add automatically creates a link that Pinners can tap to see other Pins with that same hashtag. People can discover hashtags in places like search results and Pin descriptions. When you visit a hashtag feed, the freshest Pins are featured up top.
For my descriptions, should I use full sentences or only keywords?
People are reading these, so sentences work best. But remember that robots are also indexing these, so make sure to include strong keywords.
There’s a new “Creators” landing page with case studies and tips. Good overview for anyone getting started: https://business.pinterest.com/en/creators. You can also email Creator support at Creators-Support@pinterest.com.
Tailwind Tribes
Look to join and maintain smaller tribes with good quality control. Tribes that are helping to distribute spammy Pins are becoming an issue–don’t assume that because you see a Pin in a Tribe, it’s “safe.” Look for familiar URLs and click through the Pins you don’t recognize to see if it leads to a spammy site or a quality one.
How many times a day should I be Pinning?
Pin a handful of times or a lot, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re following the spam rules and doing it authentically (not blindly). Pinterest understands that a smaller blogger with less posts/Pins is going to Pin less than a larger blogger with 1,000 posts/Pins. The most important thing is to save ideas consistently and steadily, rather than in one single flurry.
What’s the deal with Group Boards?
While group boards are a great way to collaborate with friends and family, they are not good mechanisms for getting distribution. The ones that follow Pinterest’s wishes are small group boards that are all Pinning about a small handful of related topics (healthy recipes and fitness; kids crafts and recipes, etc). Go find a few bloggers that are similar to you and have great content and create a niche group board. Pinterest wants collaboration, not group boards that hack the distribution of Pins/algorithm. <— this was stressed many times during our phone calls.
What I’m doing different
I manage my own Pinterest account as well as a few accounts for brands and bloggers. I’m changing the way all of the accounts are managed due to these changes.
Personally, I’ll no longer be adding duplicate Pins to boards. I’ll be evaluating where my Pins link to very closely and paying more attention to Tailwind’s little ! warnings that say “you’ve Pinned this Pin to the same board.”
I’ll be creating more new Pins for posts so I can still share my newest and more popular recipes in ways that don’t look as spammy. Right now, I create 4-6 per post and each focuses on a different category of the post (Weight Watchers, Healthy, 21 Day Fix, cooking method, etc). I’ll be making at least 2 Pins for each of these categories now.
I’m leaving any tribe that isn’t managed by someone I know or has ANY spammy looking Pins. I’m also creating a few tribes and hiring someone to check them weekly for rule following and quality links. My assistants will have lists of “safe” accounts to Pin from.
I’ll be Pinning more from bloggers I know and less from unknown sources. If I Pin about a certain topic, I’ll be creating tribes to help fill my boards and filling those Tribes with high quality bloggers.
I have to agree with everyone who’s already voiced concerns about the not pinning the same image thing. As a user, I would much rather see the same image and know they all go to the same post than think I have a bunch of different options and then find, after clicking, that they’re all the same!
Wow! I have to say after reading this it makes me wonder if Pinterest is starting to be more like Facebook and not worth the hours I put into it per week. For years we have been told to pin the same pin to the same boards. Not back to back, but with other pins/other people content between them. Now it looks like that is a big no-no?? Why on earth would I want to spend my time on a platform that is not going to help my traffic as that is kinda the point why all bloggers use different platforms.
I could totally see maybe making a rule where you can not pin back to back as I said above or a minimum amount of days/months that need to pass before you can pin it to that board again. But to never be able to pin it to that board again, is just absurd!
As for stopping spam pins, I try my hardest not to pin ones that I feel may be spam. But honestly, I pin 30+ pins a day (scheduled with Tailwind) as I have found that works best for keeping my followers active and to gain new followers. There is no way I have time to click on each and every pin to be 100% sure it is going to where it says it is. I am a small blogger and do everything on my own and can not afford to pay someone to help check pins.
I feel that should really fall on Pinterest shoulders to verify that the pins that are pinned from sites or uploaded are not from spam. I kinda feel like them asking us to click through each and every pin is asking us to work for free to verify the pins.
Guess I may have to rethink my Pinterest game and maybe start spending less time there. It may be time to up my SEO game so I can get the best return for my time.
Thank you for this post! I would LOVE to see Pinterest have a better solution for creators to report spam profiles. Reporting through their support messages is not working and I was told that we cannot report more than 1 account. I have a list of over 60 accounts that are stealing my pins and redirecting to other sites. There is no way I can physically report all of the pins on these profiles.
Also, when you DMCA 1 pin, it only takes down that 1 pin. It does not take down all of the repins associated with that pin. So I have had some stolen images with 7K repins and I have no option to get all of those taken down unless I select “remove all” which removes mine as well. Why can’t we get an option to remove all repins for the one pin you are reporting?
Pinterest needs to get their act together. They can’t go around with a million different reps saying different things through bloggers. Man up and come up with guidelines for how you want us, as bloggers, to pin and post them on your website so we know they’re legit.
Never repinning a pin to a board is crazy. Do you think we have time to make a million pins for each post? Do you continue showing them our old pins days, weeks, months and years after we pin them? And even if we do make multiple pins for the same post, it’s still the same content the user gets to.
No, we shouldn’t repin the same pin every day to the same board, but what’s even the point of boards other than as part of the algorithm? No one looks at boards anymore, so what does it matter.
Ugh! I’ve been trying to be successful on Pinterest for a long time but they keep changing the game and being vague. I’m about to give up.
I’ve been blogging for over 10 years, so I have a ton of posts on my blog. I joined pinterest back in the day you needed an invite to use it, so I have a ton of pins. Pinterest has changed the way followers can see our pins, so the only way they can see our old pins is to pin it again. What is the definition of too much or too spammy? And my feed is currently SPAMMED with tons of paid ads that are totally irrelevant to me. Honestly, if Pinterest wants bloggers to USE their site, they really need to help us and not make it harder for us to get our pins seen by our followers.
My comments are very much the same. When Pinterest changed the algorithm to show only what people are interested in vs who they followed it was like blow to traffic. The amount of ads that are in the feed is getting insane and as a user, annoying, but the ads that I have seen are extremely spammy, but I guess because they paid, they get a pass. There are three promoted pins per full screen of pins.
The fact that Tailwind JUST created a tool specifically designed to pin the same images to multiple boards on a schedule makes me wonder if Pinterest just can’t make up its mind. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m spending too much time and energy on a platform that seems to care only about those pumping money into the platform (just like Facebook). I’m over pumping money into schedulers to stay “relevant” when the algorithm isn’t kind to actual content creators vs marketings selling products.
So, right after approving two schedulers than specialize in looping, Pinterest says not to loop? Okay. Sounds like it’s time to give up on Pinterest, then. The chaotic disorganization of this company just isn’t worth it. You could lose a year of sleep trying to follow what you think are the rules du jour and still end up getting banned for spamming. And I literally can’t go through boards I started in 2011 and clean them all of duplicates – I’ve tried to do this sort of thing before and you just can’t keep it all straight. And it sounds like there’s no point pinning except when you have a new post, so I won’t need to pay for a scheduler.
For free, I am #1 in Google for lots of lucrative key phrases – that’s 80% of my traffic. For free, I get a decent amount of traffic from Facebook that I can grow. With Pinterest, I spend so much money on schedulers and so much time trying to follow their rules, and while I do have a nice bit of traffic to show for it, that could all just disappear suddenly one day. It’s just not worth it anymore.
The idea that our boards shouldn’t have duplicate pins is insane and contrary to way the EVERY blogger and content creator uses Pinterest. It’s the opposite of the way approved schedulers work. It’s the opposite of basically all Pinterest strategies and advice. And since Pinterest completely depends on the content we create for them it’s about time they START LISTENING TO US!!!! duplicate pins are literally HOW we get views and make money. Stop changing and regulating things like this and focus on the real problem-stolen pins. Please, please, please!
The problem isnt duplicate content on a board being spam, if you actually looked at the spammers boards they basically never duplicate images, but all the images there point to the exact same URLs. I think pinterest needs to be working harder on stopping actual spammers and stop making the content creators that keep your platform alive jump through ever changing hoops of fire and confusion. I added a brand specific hashtag to all my pins to make it easier for consumers to find my pins. Do you know what I actually use it for these days? Reporting stolen pins as the first 50 or so that show up when using my own hashtag is my own pins that are stolen. I report 50 to 70 stolen pins a week (what a waste of my life!) And they are from the same accounts or a variety of accounts clearly set up by the same people, and yes I report whole accounts too, but nothing changes. They always take the pins that are doing the best for me too!
Just last year we were told that pinning the same pin to boards isn’t an issue – as long as it’s not back-to-back (meaning, mixed in with other relevant pins on that same board), because the usual Pinterest user doesn’t usually visit boards (so they won’t even see there are multiples of the same pin on that board), rather they rely on their algorithm-driven feed.
It is very frustrating and disturbing when as users we continually receive conflicting information from Pinterest. Frankly, I have come to NOT rely on these kinds of posts because in a couple of weeks another person is going to “talk to a Pinterest rep” and have a completely different story. This has happened so many times that I don’t even know who to trust any longer – certainly I don’t trust anyone who works for Pinterest to speak for Pinterest because it seems no one there knows what’s going on.
What’s more, as a user, I would be 100% frustrated by visiting 3-4 different-looking pins that all lead to the same post. If I’m doing a search for a particular topic and open up several pins, half of which lead to the exact same post, I would be very, very frustrated by this experience. I would MUCH rather have the same pin show up multiple times in a Pinterest search so I know to only open one of them and leave the rest there. I would – not at all – be bothered by seeing multiples of the same pin. Certainly far less bothered by opening up multiple pins that all lead to one post.
Lastly, I certainly hope Pinterest is reading the comments here, because they need to know that this particular “new rule” is 100% no good for user experience. It is certainly one I don’t plan to follow right off because I certainly do not want to frustrate readers who would potentially find my site annoying by this practice. I can see this being very bad for my website user experience. I’m doing what’s best for MY site – and having a handful of different pins leading to one post will not lead to a good experience.
Yikes. I’ve been on the fence about investing more time in Pinterest, but they’re dealing the deal here. No way it could have an ROI at this point.
Aside from my blog, I have a day job where I manage over $100MM in media spend. This past year, I pulled all the dollars we had for Pinterest and invested in other platforms. After meeting the account rep, it was clear they are in way over their head and not ready to start taking money from real advertisers. This doesn’t look like they’re learning much yet.
I actually really like Pinterest from a personal perspective. Bummer.
I don’t even know what to say about some of the recs here.
Not pinning multiple times to the same board? What happens when Pinterest decides to give that pin a teeny tiny reach, and it goes nowhere? That’s it for that board? Forever? Totally makes no sense.
I don’t think Pinterest actually knows how people use their platform. After following someone, who actually *ever* goes back and looks at their boards? Also, I suspect that there’s a good deal of competitive blogger reporting going on, trying to get rid of the accounts of their competition. Reporting an account because of multiple pins on a board? Normal users don’t do that. Normal users aren’t even aware that stolen/spammy pins are a problem – that’s why they get repinned so often.
I just forked out money for TW SmartLoop, which, by its very nature, repeatedly saves pins to the same boards, over and over. So, did Pinterest just kill that feature? Well, crap, I want my money back.
Also, Pinterest, deal with stolen pins! This issue continues to spiral out of control. Stop worrying about the frequency of legit pins on my boards and find a way to prevent the kind of theft that’s occurring right from your platform.
I keep waiting for Pinterest to embrace and support the content creators that populate their platform with FREE content, but I’m starting to think that’s just a pipe dream.
As far as repinning, I’m with many other commenters here – Pinterest says this new best practice is because users see duplicate pins on a board as spammy, yet just a few months ago we were told that users don’t view group boards like we thought they did and we should stop using them.
To be blunt, those two points don’t add up. And I would normally write that off has a simple correction, but this has happened multiple times with them in just the past year alone.
I appreciate the idea that Pinterest is attempting to take an interest in content creators, but as time goes on, it seems more like they’re trying to herd us than to help us. Like they only listen to our feedback because they’re waiting to tell us what their plans are for us. That they really don’t know how to keep us from successfully promoting our content on their platform without simultaneously ruining their vision of the feed, so they “reach out” to us with “tips” that will – ultimately – hurt us in the end while also achieving their own gaals.
Because from my four+ years of using the platform, I already have a good idea what works for Pinterest users. For instance, I know people like long pins – they like seeing more to the story of what the site has to offer. Pinterest can bully “giraffe pins” out of the feed as much as they’d like, but for a company that’s so user focused, it’s an odd choice – except that shorter pins mean room for ads, so maybe that motivation is crystal clear.
I can only assume that encouraging us to repin less is of the same grain – that less pins from us means more room in the feed for ads. But the problem with feeds is that they are constantly calculating and very subjective in what they show. For example, 5 people might see my pin at 7:47PM, but I can guarantee you there were probably 100+ other people that could have seen it, too, if the feed wasn’t working to distribute content in very specific ways. And, because of the very nature of feeds, the greater majority of that 100+ will NEVER see that first pin.
That, in the end, is why I’ll continue to repin at a responsible rate, because it was Pinterest’s own choice to use an algorithm, and the only way to work an algorithm is to keep content evergeen (or in other words, repinning). That’s marketing 101. Until Pinterest can guarantee us that the one pin they’d like us to create will have the authentic and unobstructed opportunity to be shown to every possible person that’s eligible to see it (from followers, group boards, whatever) in the feed, then it’s a poor business decision on our part not to continue to promote our content.
Yeah, definitely feel that if our pin becomes spammy that should not be the pinners issue but Pinterest.
Thanks for sharing! While I appreciate the info from Pinterest, it’s hard to take anything they say seriously since they change their policies and the way their website runs on a weekly basis. The only way to keep up is to monitor what’s ACTUALLY working on your account, and in my experience, that’s usually the OPPOSITE of what they say.
For example, they say focus on 2×3 pins. I spent tons of hours creating 2×3 pins for my old posts, and guess what, my traffic from Pinterest tanked. The second I switched back to longer pins, traffic shot up. I’ve monitored it closely for over a year with the same results.
I honestly wish they’d spend more time solving the portions of their website that DOESN’T work instead of wasting time changing things that already work well enough.
They are not doing anywhere near enough work to fight against copyright infringement. Literally about 90% of my pins from my account have been stolen. Their current reporting system is clunky and inefficient. I have reported spammy accounts that literally contain 95% stolen ends multiple times, and months later, the accounts are still at it- stealing my pins and others. When I scroll through my home feed, I literally see dozens of my images that have been stolen. I’d need to hire a full-time assistant to report them all.
While I’ll never completely stop using Pinterest, I have to admit I’m drastically changing my blog distribution strategy this year to focus less on Pinterest because their new changes make absolutely no sense, and they have failed to correct issues with their website for years . Very, very disappointed.
Why would content creators invest any more time in a platform when the rules of engagement so frequently change, risking onorous penalties that are subjectively applied? Particularly when our intellectual property is currently so vulnerable. I’ve begun using Pinterest as a civilian again, which is enjoyable, but it’s a shame that a platform which used to bring us so much traffic appears to be flailing in terms of user experience and creator participation. We will be focusing elsewhere.
Pinning content to boards that fit different things has always been the base of Pinterest. This completely takes away from the entire purpose of the platform.
I had heard a while back that Pinterest didn’t like boards that didn’t have a lot of activity. So better to have fewer active boards than many boards that didn’t have pins going on them regularly. Do you know if that’s still the case?
Trista, I haven’t heard an update on this but Pinterest will be reading the comments here so maybe they will address it?
If you think how a normal user uses their own pinterest boards – pinning things they find just when they’re looking for them. Which would mean there are plenty of boards that are inactive so I don’t see how inactive boards could hurt as it is the natural flow of things.
This is very helpful in understanding what Pinterest wants from us, but the ‘not pinning the same pin’ contradicts what I’ve read/learned prior…my question though is this: if a pin doesn’t pick up traction, is it okay to delete that pin and re-pin it at a different time? I know we are not supposed to delete pins, but if we can’t pin the same pin to a board, how do we gain traction/traffic to that post without deleting it? I don’t want to fill my blog posts up with 12 pins. My readers like beautiful imagery, not text overlay pin style photos….
As soon as I feel like I understand something about Pinterest, in this case Smart Loop, everything changes again. It’s extremely frustrating to put time (and also money) to catering to the whims of this platform. As soon as I hired a VA to create long pins for me, they were all of a sudden not the ideal choice (even going to be cut off now??). I put the time in to understand and set up smart loop, and now it seems like, again, that time was wasted. I am losing trust.
This is all very disheartening. I am a long time blogger but have recently slowly started a new lifestyle site and I’m trying to figure out how pinterest works. As a blogger that is not well known in the pinterest world, if everyone is only pinning from a select group of bloggers that they know, how will anyone new ever have a chance at being successful? It seems like instead of having content and creative ideas freely flowing, there will be select groups that share only amongst each other and everyone else is out of luck even though my pins are not less quality or more spammy than anyone else’s. It’s only because I haven’t been out there to be “discovered”. The way it’s been stated to only pin from people you know, that shuts out a LOT of bloggers who don’t know each other from ever even having the chance to be “discovered” at all and a lot of quality content will be buried in the archives never to be seen.
Spam on Pintereset should be a Pinterest problem, not thrown onto the content creators to fix it for them. Just like spam on Facebook is a FB problem. If we all pulled all our content from Pinterest, no one would have any reason to go there and they would be just like all those other platforms that have come and gone. Everyone can go to google to find our posts instead and Pinterest will be obsolete. You would think they would find a way to work with the content creators in a way that makes sense and stop our pins from being stolen and stop the spammers, not punish us in the process. There are plenty of other places we can spend our time. Pinterest needs to fix the problem, not punish the people that are creating the content that keeps people coming to their platform in the first place.