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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 am relatively new to the blogging world, I understood that we should pin as many times as we wish to our own boards. Especially the pins that drive traffic. This doesn’t make sense. What is smartloop for then?
All these changes are seriously exhausting to keep up with. I spent a small fortune to get Smart Loop just like most other bloggers.
Pinterest set up a meeting with me the other week and said I would have to pay $100 per day in ads to get any traction on my pins.
After that call and hearing this information it sounds like you either have to create new pins daily for each post or pay to play to get any traffic.
I’m already working on my SEO to replace Pinterest traffic. I’m so so tired of riding their roller coaster ride of changes.
I love Pinterest, both as a user and a blogger.
That being said, I am increasingly disappointed with the way bloggers have been treated and our concerns ignored.
The entire Pinterest platform is built entirely on the content that bloggers created. If there was no blogger-created content, there would be nothing for users to search for. There would be nothing to space out ads from big brands.
Because of this, you would think that Pinterest would be thanking us, instead of making our lives more difficult with ever-changing rules and algorithms that hide most of our content.
The reason we have to pin a single pin dozens of times is that 19 out of 20 are never shown to anyone. Period. I liken it to throwing wet noodles at a wall and hoping one will stick.
And don’t even get me started on spam profiles. I have had SO many of my top performing pins knocked out of the search results and “smart” (haha) feed by spam sites which have stolen my image and re-directed it to their own URL. There is no telling how many thousands of dollars we’ve all lost from these spammers.
I’ve sent spam profiles to Pinterest’s copyright email before and the response was to DMCA every individual pin. I can’t do that when there are THOUSANDS and they are constantly replaced by new spam pins. There should be zero-tolerance for obvious spammers and content thieves. Some of these pins have images of my children – and who knows what kind of sites those images now lead to! It’s really disturbing.
I don’t want to see Pinterest go down the tubes – I want them to actually work with us and create a platform that benefits everyone: Pinterest, users, and content creators. It could be such a good thing again!
I can certainly understand only pinning a pin once within 30 days (with other good content in between), but only pinning once to a board total seems ridiculous. If this is truly the case then paying for Tailwind is a waste.
All I can say is that Pinterest isn’t going to last as long as they think and it’s investors are going to lose a LOT of money.
Content creators drive their platform and we have tried to play by the rules…but this is utterly ridiculous!
I am beyond annoyed and am heading to work on SEO and google and kiss Pinterest goodbye. It’s not me…it’s YOU. When you change this often and this illogically, you cease to offer a good ROI and a businessperson first.
Soooooo, pins that are totally different, but link to the same post should still be okay right? They just don’t want complete duplicates?
I love pinterest! I am confused though… what is smartloop for if pinterest doesn’t want the same pins pinned? Also, pins seem to wear out… nobody sees a pin about a valentine activity from 2018 unless I pin the same post again in 2019. Recycling content makes sense because nobody is going to scroll through my boards long enough to see duplicate content because the duplicate pin is more than a month old, but it still gives the “You’ve already pinned this” warning.
I think it’s stupid to prevent pinning to the same board, otherwise we’re doing nothing but making new pins and new boards and not actually creating new content. No one really looks at boards – they search. If they want to worry about spam they ought to look at the REAL spam – all the stolen pins and fake accounts that are nothing but tons of stolen pins. Filling out the DMCA form for everyone just wastes more time because so many more pop up. I’m focusing on other things. Wasting my time making a ton of boards and pins doesn’t seem to be a good roi when I could be creating new material. And until they solve the stolen content problem I would never consider paying Pinterest for anything. I can pay Facebook instead.
This is the most depressing blog-related thing I’ve read in quite a while. By saying that bloggers shouldn’t save a pin to any board more than once, they are essentially saying that Pinterest is no longer a place for small and medium bloggers. Because those bloggers don’t have assistants who can create multiple pins for each and every post. Large bloggers could pay someone to do that, but whether or not it’s worth the time and money seems to be a big question.
I remember when Kate Ahl went to the Pinterest Creators Conference this summer, then shared about it on her podcast. It was so lovely and encouraging – it sounded like Pinterest really wanted to work with creators to benefit both the platform and the people who are providing the content. But this sounds like a complete 180 degree turn.
As others have said, if you save a pin to the same board at a reasonable interval – say a month later – no one knows. It doesn’t affect user experience at all. So why punish content creators for doing that?
This feels like one of those situations where everyone is punished for the sins of a few people. Spam is a problem on Pinterest, and some accounts do spam boards with multiple copies of the same pin. So it seems like the solution that Pinterest has chosen is to punish everyone, not just the spammers.
I have invested a lot of time and energy in Pinterest. I have adapted to every change that the platform has required of pinners, have shared lots of solid content and no spam, and have supported other creators by sharing their content. But this change just seems like too much. If I have to create half a dozen or more pins for every post, just to keep my content circulating on the platform, I may need to invest my considerable Pinterest time and energy elsewhere.
This is incredibly discouraging and disappointing.
First off I am not a blogger. I came across this article because a friend (who is a blogger) shared it on her FB page with several hands in the air emojis.
I am a Pinterest obsessive so I thought I’d have a read.
So my two pennies as a user
Firstly I didn’t realise bloggers spent so much time or money on Pinterest.
Secondly when I go onto Pinterest I miss the good old days when the people I follow (which isn’t many) showed up on my first page.
Now I get pins that are similar to something I searched for last week and ads for bras for bigger ladies. Oh and always a video for Apple laptops!!!
I tend to go into Pinterest whilst I am sat at sports clubs waiting for the kids. I search for dinner ideas, maybe some dream decorating ideas for our tired house. I pin exercise routines I know I will never follow and fabulous ideas for making my own table decorations. Oh and home plans for a house I will probably never build.
I search for something and then follow the rabbit warren down until I’ve saved several things to different boards.
Then I may not use Pinterest again until the weekend when I look at the food I pinned and decide if it is something to make next week.
I will pin Christmas ideas in March and not look at them for months. By then I may see the same idea and pin it again.
I wouldn’t even think about spam pins leading the URLs, I just pin what looks good.
I am sure I have pinned the same thing several times. I’m a mum! I can reheat and forget to drink my cup of coffee 4 times in one morning. I remember sports bags, paying bills, after school schedules, how to do fractions (kids homework!!!)
But what I don’t remember is what I thought looked good on a site I use to relax and plan for my dream house when I am my dream weight with my dream wardrobe and all the time in the world go cook delicious pretty food.
I pin, I go back to things I love. Or if I can’t find the pin I search, find it again and pin it again.
I duplicate pins all the time! I also love seeing what the people I follow have pinned. As I sometimes miss what they have pinned as they are hidden behind the big boob bra ads!
I don’t understand why Pinterest changed. It used to be great, it used to be fun to just scroll.
Now I have to think and search and even that now seems to not be enough.
If I miss something one week why wouldn’t I be happy to see it repinned again a week later?
These changes suck. I get probably around 40-50k monthly sessions from pinterest. I don’t do repin threads or use any apps. I reported some accounts with stolen pins that were redirected and had my account suspended after someone improperly read my message. They thought I was the spammer. I emailed creator support and it was fixed.
That said, I do my blog alone. I don’t have the time to track every pin to each board.
I’m honestly wondering if it’s worth putting the effort into a platform that is such mess. There needs to be a way that bloggers can reliably promote their pins without paying or being flagged as spammers?
When will pinterest probably deal with stolen pins properly? Reporting these accounts is hard enough and now I’m terrified of reporting spam on pinterest.
A lot of my pins have been stolen and I’d love to see a way to see that traffic redirected to my website.
Sounds like it’s time to invest my efforts from now on in promoting my evergreen content on other platforms. Is it even useful to have Tailwind anymore? Lately, it seems that results only come from live-pinning anyway.
This serves as an important reminder for bloggers not to put all their eggs in one basket when it comes to traffic.
Utter nonsense. And since one Pinterest rep will say the opposite of another, I’m not believing a word of their advice and will continue to do what works, with the barest minimum of time and money spent.
I’m fine with the not duplicating pins on the same board thing ( I don’t do this and actually cleaned 90% of duplicates from my boards a couple of years ago thanks to Board Booster’s Pin Doctor Tool – Tailwind is useless) . But what totally infuriates me with Pinterest is the laggyness and duplication of the notifications. Why on earth am I notified over and over again that the same pins have been repinned? It’s a total waste of my time to see the same information in each notification. ( and yes, I do check every notification and study results minutely) Individual notifications please, and never notify us twice.
I’ve been pinning a LONG time and am so frustrated with customer support at Pinterest. Recently, another Pinterest I manage was accused of stealing images and directing those images to another site (not their site – so doesn’t even make sense why we would do that) and I reached out with the other blogger whose site the traffic was being directed to and Pinterest did nothing to help us. I went digging into my Tailwind account and realized that there were some Pin images on my account that are pulling up as my top pins, but the images don’t match with the website or topic, and it’s directing traffic to a website other than my own. I believe there is a pinterest glitch that pinterest isn’t addressing and isn’t helping with. I know LOTS Of other bloggers have this same thing happening to them. Very frustrating. I also do ALL the things you’ve suggested here and have seen a steady decline in my referral traffic. Haven’t had a pin bring in significant traffic in over a year, and I’m working my butt off creating good pins with keywords and good images. Sometimes I wonder if Pinterest is even worth it anymore. Used to be that some of my pins would bring in thousands of views. Now I feel like if I get a few hundred. Sigh.
In your section “What is considered Spam on Pinterest”
The article states that the board will be reported- but you can’t report boards on Pinterest. https://help.pinterest.com/en/article/report-something-on-pinterest
Since you have insider access to Pinterest people, is this something that will be available in the future?
Going forward I will stop live pinning of repeat pins. I just plunked down a chunk of change for Tailwind Smart Loops so now what?
Pinterest has been a decent source of traffic so I have invested tons of personal time and money using it to grow my blog and brand. Now I don’t trust Pinterest anymore, at least not enough to waste anymore of my time. I have done what is asked and Pinterest has responded by making my pins shown less and less. And what about stolen pins? I am better off growing my email list than wasting my time trying to work with Pinterest that would have benefitted both of us.
Such a waste of time, energy and money – ours and Pinterest’s.
I have been blogging for just over 4years. Pinterest used to bring me THE MOST traffic. Within the last year I have almost pulled my hair out because of Pinterest. They change the rules more than Facebook. This last week was insane trying to pin anything. I kept getting the “oops something went wrong on our end” when trying to pin. So frustrating. I don’t have time to make multiple pins so I can repin content. Tailwind Smart Loop is usesless here. So if other bloggers happen to pin the same pin to a board that is considered spam? That is crap!! If I see the same pin several times on a board and it is something I am interested in making, chances are I am more likely to look at that URL since the pin is SO POPULAR. Maybe I will just stop using Pinterest altogether. Perhaps that will make them happier. That will take care multiple pins of the same pin. NO PINS at all!!!! Give you head a shake Pinterest. Why be so difficult to get along with?
So explain how we supposed to get our old content out there if we can’t pin it multiple times to the same board? I pin everything once to all the relevant boards when it goes live, and then a few months later to those same boards, and then a few months after that, etc. Does Pinterest expect us to just constantly be creating new boards and joining boards to pin to? Or are we supposed to be creating new content at a ridiculous rate so we’re always sharing new things?
Get your crap together, Pinterest.