Pinterest Algorithm: How to Beat It in 2023

Pinterest has in recent years taken to continuously update its algorithm as the application gains massive users. These updates have become increasingly constant and if you are not keen as a user you may be unable to keep up with the changes.

2022

In February Pinterest updated its algorithm by allocating more search results space to idea pins. This is a necessity if the app intends to stay in per with trends and popular formats on other social media platforms.

 In comparison to idea pins, regular pins have been getting fewer views and clicks due to the prominence given to idea pins. Idea pins could drive traffic to your site. This is possible if users click through to the profile of the person who originally pinned the idea. Unfortunately, if your homepage is not associated with the pin they clicked on, this traffic may not stick around.

For a blogger or business person, if traffic remains on your site, ensure you are quick to add new email subscribers by promoting your content on Idea pins.

2021 Pinterest Updates

January

Performing keyword research on this platform is not as it used to be. This shift can be attributed to the algorithm where the once colorful boxes that gave keyword suggestions are not displayed for most of the users. Whether this change is temporary or permanent is yet to be seen.  It is advisable to ensure you check the grammar and spelling when entering keywords in a piece of text.

Spring

In spring  2021, Pinterest algorithm notably tagged pins related to products in specific categories to its online shop. This meant that such pins continued to receive the same number of views despite the gradual drop in Pinterest clicks to external sites. In other words, while your pins still get good visibility and search engine rankings, they aren’t generating as much new interest as they once did.

In comparison to regular pins that didn’t have tagged products, the new one doesn’t work when clicked on. Users can visit your site by clicking the pin’s title. So it’s tough to get clicks to go elsewhere from these pins.

If you select one of these tags, you will experience the following:

• A “shop” tab is present on the desktop version of Pinterest, where users can find links to various online stores. (independent of the website linked in the original pin).
• As an online store owner or blogger, you can manually assign tags to your pins thereby reducing the total number of pins that will be affected.
• The external product links vanish after manually tagging posts or products. In addition, once you’ve added your own tags, clicking on the pin image once again functions as intended, and visitors can easily navigate to your linked page.
• 2020.

July

In light of creating controllable dispersion, a new algorithm was created. The algorithm was designed to increase variety in the types of content displayed in the homepage feed, as explained in a post published by the company’s developers on the Pinterest Engineering Blog on Medium.

Previously, Pinterest showed its users content based on their past activity on the platform. The new algorithm will function on top of the old one instead of replacing it. This means that it will first build the home feed for each user based on their history, then apply controllable distribution. 

For example, it can specify that 3% of a user’s home feed should contain video pins even if the user never clicks on videos. In this case as content creators and business promoters on the app,  we’ll have to experiment more with video pins. Overall we must utilize other emerging formats that Pinterest is introducing to promote our content or products.

June – Pinterest Introduces a Fresh Pin Algorithm

Pinterest’s algorithm changes and updates seem to affect many accounts, so they held a brief live chat with Tailwind’s scheduling tool to address user concerns. Even though the updated Best Practices were announced by Pinterest and Tailwind in February 2020, the June live session didn’t appear to address the algorithm’s adjustments or what content providers could do to keep up. It wasn’t a surprise that Pinterest’s representative didn’t fill us in on what was going on, instead focusing on the need for constantly updated content to placate the new algorithm. 

In February and March, Pinterest announced a change to its algorithm that will prioritize new pins above repins in the feed and search results. Many people have proposed bypassing Pinterest’s support staff altogether and just uploading pins to the service directly. During this live Q&A, a Pinterest employee confirmed that both Tailwind and Pinterest’s built-in scheduler are acceptable scheduling options. All Pinterest really needs is new pins. Pinterest will continue to circulate repins but at a reduced rate. Making fresh pins is the best strategy to increase your Pinterest following and traffic.

Penalty on Pinterest

Deindexed pins are a new Pinterest penalty. Many accounts were suspended due to an overly harsh spam filter. It however immediately lifted the ban on legitimate accounts.

Some accounts with unblocked domains saw a sharp decline in impressions and traffic. Their pins disappeared from Pinterest search results.( Deindexed). Impressions don’t drop to zero! Since new pins are only exposed to followers of prohibited domains, they stay low.

Some accounts recovered after a month of emailing Pinterest support. Account holders were informed that their pins would be re-indexed in 10 days after being mistakenly marked as spam.

April – Shop and Explore Tabs for Queries with Shopping Intent

For many keywords that might have a shopping user intent (examples: “spring outfits“, “office decor“, “kitchen remodel“), Pinterest starts showing the following two tabs: Shop and Explore. The Explore tab shows a mix of product pins, promoted pins, and regular results from websites and blogs. The Shop tab shows only product pins. Pinterest introduced a Today tab, a source of daily inspiration with curated topics and trending Pins that makes it easy to explore popular and timely ideas.

March – Web Filtering and User Identification Flags

 As more and more content creators started making pins about COVID-19, Pinterest started hiding search results for several terms connected to the virus. If you search for anything related to Coronavirus on Pinterest, you will only see results from the World Health Organization (WHO). The company also warns users that they can report users who post Covid-19-related pins because doing so is against their Community Guidelines.

February

Pinterest (and Tailwind) Announced the NEW Best Practices In the middle of February 2020, Pinterest and Tailwind made together a live video session to announce the changes coming to the algorithm, the NEW Pinterest best practices, and recommended pinning limits on Tailwind.

January – Spam Clean-up on Pinterest

 Throughout the entire month of January 2020, Pinterest has been doing a major spam clean-up. It looks like Pinterest makes them at least a few times a year. This time, sites across all niches are being blocked and account suspended without any warning. However, Pinterest’s support seems to reply pretty quickly during this wave. Most of the people who were suspended or blocked got their accounts up and running in a few days.

2019 November – Pin Title Added to Tailwind Calendar

The Tailwind team finally added the ability to customize the title of each pin in November 2019. Pinterest has confirmed multiple times since the spring of 2019 a continuing technical issue with Rich pins on the newly validated websites, so this feature was especially important for those websites that had trouble with Rich pins. There would be a message from the Rich Pins validator saying that Rich Pins were enabled, but no data would be taken from the page’s SEO title or meta description.

In early 2019, Pinterest added a separate pin title field on their own platform, so you could still enter the title manually if your Rich pins weren’t working. The issue arose because Tailwind-published pins lacked titles when scheduled to be shared on other boards. It’s because Tailwind relied solely on information from the Rich pin, and if that didn’t work for your site, you wouldn’t see a title on your pins.

In conclusion, Pinterest algorithm will keep bringing changes to the platform. It is up to users to stay on track with updates while using positive changes to promote their products and content.