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Is this a Pinterest Shadow Ban?

youeatplants
Just visiting

Hello,

So I'm become quite frustrated with Pinterest over time, to the point of wanting to quit entirely.

So the only time I can get a decent amount of impressions, is when I was using some free advertising they offered me recently.  When ads are no longer running, I only get around 100 impressions on the entire account per DAY.

(I'm not expecting to have enormous numbers, but these numbers have been so low that it's hard to want to invest any time into Pinterest.  If I did see some better numbers, I would absolutely put way more time into pinning)

The account is over a year old and I have over 500 pins, however, I can not seem to get any growth.  I do understand that when I first started, I didn't fully know what I was doing, so I had images without text as pins, some posts that probably wouldn't be searched for on Pinterest, and when I would go to create pins on the Pinterest site using my URL, it would give me an option with all the images on the page, so I would just save all of them.  (I didn't fully know what I was doing.  However, I have another account that gets like 100k impressions per month, and that's all I did for that account, so I figured it was the right thing to do)

I have in the last year and especially recently, started creating really nice professional-looking pins, and they are on topics that would be of high interest and volume on Pinterest.  I'm in the plant-based/Vegan/food niche, which is HUGE on Pinterst.  I also have tried making idea pins.  However, I still only get like 100 impressions a day.  I was reading on a Pinterest experts blog, that if you have single-digit impressions a week after creating a pin, you might be shadow banned, or in the spam filter.  This happens to me.  When looking at pins I made over a week ago, they are in the single digits for almost all of them.

I even watched the Pinterest Creators account which said recently that Chia Seed pudding is a topic that has a ton more searches than pins.  But, I already have pins on that, that are getting very little to no impressions!  So I even created a new pin for one of my posts on this, but still hardly anything.

I've also noticed that even repinning other popular stuff is getting me no impressions anymore.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

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1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
terezatoledo
Pinterest Pioneer
Pinterest Pioneer

Hi @youeatplants , welcome to the PBC!
Thanks for the tag @bodymindmood !

I haven't seen "shadowban" on Pinterest in the 6+ years I've been helping people with building their accounts. There are topics that Pinterest may suppress, but I don't think that's your case.

You already know that Pinterest takes time and is a slow burn. Taking a quick look at your account, aside from a good optimization with keywords in all places (profile description and boards), this is what would help:

1. Create pins consistently, specially idea pins. Standard static pins should be posted daily and idea pins at least a few times a week for faster growth

2. Use keyworded titles and descriptions when creating all pins. You are not utilizing your pin titles and descriptions properly.

3. Avoid repeating the same pin images

A good exercise is to search your niche and competitors. See what they are doing and what's working (pins that show up first on search) and see what they have in common. Then figure out what can you do to make your images more attractive, what questions to answer, what keywords to use. Here's a quick Idea Pin I've created with tips some time ago: https://pin.it/3EecC1X 

Lisa shared some great resources above and I don't want to overwhelm you, but since you mentioned trends, but here's a great resource on how to use them to your benefit with your content https://community.pinterest.biz/t5/conversations/want-to-hop-on-a-trend-how-to-generate-ideas-for-tr... 

I hope this helps!

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7 Replies
bodymindmood
Pinterest Pioneer
Pinterest Pioneer

@youeatplants 

Hi Welcome to the PBC!

I read your post and I feel your frustration, I'm sorry that you are having a tough go on the numbers. Below I have listed my thoughts | links and I have tagged some other Pioneers who might be able to give you some insight on how to grow your numbers | viewers and engagement.

Pinterest Shadow Ban

In the time I have been on Pinterest (circa. 2008) I have never seen a Shadow Ban - I have even reached out to other creators on different platforms and many of them don't believe that a "Shadow Ban" exists. While noone can prove or disprove the idea majority of people I have spoken to just don't believe it exists and frankly neither do I. What I have learned from other creators here on Pinterest and other platforms is that consistency, understanding trends (Pinterest for sure), keywords are the keys to any creators success. What that means for you is research on Pinterest:

Pinterest Tools.png

 

 

 

 

I know, its a little strange but I am telling you it works - use these tools when you are creating your posts and consider the keywords + trends + consistency they have huge impact over time. Once you begin it will definitely take some time but it will pick up - Make a plan and stick with it.

Advertising:

I use advertising and I love it! I don't do it all the time but when but when I want to push my numbers a bit I do use it and it works great. I think its a great tool to add to your Pinterest Plan but not as the only tool you use.

Pinterest Profile

Its been a while since  "#plantbased #vegan #vegetariank" hashtags were used I would definitely consider removing those. 

Boards - consider archiving boards that you haven't pinned to in a while or add some Idea Pins to those boards (Think Fresh Content). If you have boards where there is nothing pinned on them I would remove those boards or make them secret until you are ready to make those boards public. Check out this post which is a regular feature here on the PBC What Pinners Are Searching For

I had a look at your website as side note here - you have really great information and I love what your sharing I also noticed you have written a book big +++++++ consider using a platform like Squarespace your information blog et al would be amazing there Squarespace Templates
the templates are free for you to preview and consider starting with the template Stanton (place for your book)

@terezatoledo @JanaOMedia @michaelbliss @aloniebeauty @everydaylifewithlaura @thehalcyonhive @andrealidesigns 

Is there anything you would add? I would love your feedback.

Links You Might Be Interested In

Creator Tips and Tricks 
Tips for What to Do About Pinterest Views Fluctuating 
Feeling discouraged, trying to gain new followers? This is for you! 

Please also check out Mail Bag
You can submit questions here and any of the Pinterest Pioneers Creators | Business Owners will be able to respond to your question.

I hope this info helps you and I would also encourage you to complete your Profile here on the PBC. I gave you a follow on Pinterest and you truly are speaking my language when it comes to food.

Lisa

2 Kudos
terezatoledo
Pinterest Pioneer
Pinterest Pioneer

Hi @youeatplants , welcome to the PBC!
Thanks for the tag @bodymindmood !

I haven't seen "shadowban" on Pinterest in the 6+ years I've been helping people with building their accounts. There are topics that Pinterest may suppress, but I don't think that's your case.

You already know that Pinterest takes time and is a slow burn. Taking a quick look at your account, aside from a good optimization with keywords in all places (profile description and boards), this is what would help:

1. Create pins consistently, specially idea pins. Standard static pins should be posted daily and idea pins at least a few times a week for faster growth

2. Use keyworded titles and descriptions when creating all pins. You are not utilizing your pin titles and descriptions properly.

3. Avoid repeating the same pin images

A good exercise is to search your niche and competitors. See what they are doing and what's working (pins that show up first on search) and see what they have in common. Then figure out what can you do to make your images more attractive, what questions to answer, what keywords to use. Here's a quick Idea Pin I've created with tips some time ago: https://pin.it/3EecC1X 

Lisa shared some great resources above and I don't want to overwhelm you, but since you mentioned trends, but here's a great resource on how to use them to your benefit with your content https://community.pinterest.biz/t5/conversations/want-to-hop-on-a-trend-how-to-generate-ideas-for-tr... 

I hope this helps!

4 Kudos
JanaOMedia
Marvel

Hi @youeatplants! Welcome!  (@bodymindmood - thanks for the tag! )

Lisa gave you some great ideas above. I would also love to see you use some stronger calls to action. I'd use text overlay for these CTAs (not just verbal) and get speicfic about why people might want to take that next step that you're suggesting. 

(In particular, saves will help you grow a lot - they are *really* driving reach on the platform! - check out this post I wrote about that: https://community.pinterest.biz/t5/conversations/road-tested-tips-for-encouraging-more-saves-on-your... ) 

Also, even though you have 500+ pins and have been at it for a year, you don't have that many Idea pins?

That could definitely impact your growth and your reach. So, maybe set some goals there. (Maybe 2 to 3 idea pins per week for the next three months? Only bite off what you can chew - haha no pun intended! 🙂 - but if you can commit to that, and keep improving the quality of your pins, too - I think you'd see faster growth!) 

It is 100 percent true that Pinterest takes time to grow. It's taken me years to get my account (and client accounts) cranking at the level that they do now. But the various rewards are well worth it! 🙂 

I hope this helps! 

 

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JanaOMedia
Marvel

And @terezatoledo - fire tips as always!!! 

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bodymindmood
Pinterest Pioneer
Pinterest Pioneer

@terezatoledo @JanaOMedia 

Thanks ladies seriously great actionable information!

I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Lisa

 

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youeatplants
Just visiting

Bodymindmood,

Awesome, thanks for taking the time and replying!

Thanks for the kind words and support.  I actually haven't written a book, although I probably could with the amount of info I have! haha (I've considered in the future turning something into an ebook, but that's for when I have more time 😀)

Maybe Pinterest knew I was getting upset, or maybe after posting here something happened.  Yesterday the impressions went up to below 400, which is still not tremendous, but maybe it's a start! haha

Yeah, I've definitely got some stuff I could fix on Pinterest here, and I didn't always have the most enticing pins in the past, but for me, I need to see a little bit of results before I invest too much time here (rather than elsewhere).

I have heard from a "Pinterest expert" that if you save a pin to another board after creating it (formerly known as "repinning") without waiting 3-5 days, that Pinterest will mark it (or maybe your account?) as spam.  However, who knows if this is true.  This was something that I was doing before though.

Basically, I would save a fresh pin to my most relevant board, and then view the pin and click on the Save button with the option to save it to another board (which I usually do, because the pins are usually relevant to more than one board).  I see it as useful to users, but maybe Pinterest considered this spam?  I have no idea! haha.  I only did this for one other board usually though, I didn't go crazy and save it to like 20 other boards or anything blatantly spammy.

But as you say, maybe there is no spam/shadow ban.  I hope not, although I've heard a different Pinterest expert mention it before.  However, my impressions have improved the last day or two, so maybe that's a good start.

As far as the ads, I have heard from another that the ads are great for kickstarting a pin to get it organic traffic.  The strange thing is the pins I was promoting got a decent amount of saves, so I figured once I dropped the ads on them, that they would continue to flourish, however, they just kind of stopped (impressions wise).  So again, who knows!

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youeatplants
Just visiting

@terezatoledo @JanaOMedia 

Thanks for your help too and taking your time to help!

I did create a using chia seeds for weight loss pin at one point, and it never seemed to get impressions, and it also would not let me advertise it (because it was a weight loss topic).  So I was a little worried at one point that might have hurt my account.  Although you seem to say that they will just suppress that pin and not actually hurt the account?

As I mentioned to bodymindmood, not sure if posting here did something, but my impressions actually jumped to around 400 yesterday!  (Which still is not great, but maybe it's a start in the right direction!  But I guess it could just be you all looking at my profile lol)

My Pinterest account could be better, and it's always been hard to put the work in without seeing any results, but maybe if things trend upward more I will definitely work more and more on Pinterest.  (One of the reasons I wasn't doing Idea Pins too often is that when Idea Pins first came out, I was getting like thousands and thousands of impressions, but when I tried doing them again recently, it was a much, much lower number.  And since there was no way of using them for traffic to the site, I didn't see any reason to do them.  However, I can see the possible benefit of using them to grow followers IF you can get enough traffic and impressions from them)

I do have a question about some things you mentioned!  (Thanks for your time to help!)

1) You mention pinning static pins every day.  So here's what I have been doing now.  Basically, when I write a blog post, I'll create a pin image in Tailwind for it, and pin it to Pinterest.  I will pin it from my site, so I don't even put in any title or description, it pulls all of that from my site (I have Rich Pins enabled.  I always heard this was the best way to go).  I'll choose the most relevant board, and then usually I'll look at the new pin, and click the Save button with the option to save it to another board.  I usually will do this because I will have more than one board that the pin would fit in and that is relevant.  (However, I heard from an "expert" today that if you don't wait 3-5 before saving or repinning to another board, Pinterest will mark it as Spam.  Not sure if this is true however! But I have been doing this unaware and not in a spammy way, it just seemed like the best thing to do.  Like when I write a blog, often it will fall under more than one relevant category that I will put it into, same thing here.)

At that point, I usually won't pin anything else for that blog post.  The only time I will do a new pin is on some of my older posts before I started making the better Pin images, I will now go back and make a new image to create a fresh pin.

So, does this mean I need to be creating one new blog post per day with a fresh pin in order to do better in Pinterest?  Or, are you saying that I need to be creating new pins everyday for that same content?

To me that seemed like spam, to keep creating new pin images for the same old blog post continually, but maybe that's what Pinterest wants! haha

If that's the case, should I create a certain number of unique pin images every time I create a blog post?  And what number should I aim for?  Like just 2-3, or should it be something way more like 20, 50 or even 100?  (I'm so confused about this part).  And then, do you post each new pin image every day until you get through all of them?  Or do you need to wait a certain number of days between each? Or should you just bulk upload them all at once and create a bunch of pins for that same post?

Sorry for all the questions, it just feels like the Wild West out here, and no set idea of what exactly to do when pinning!  (as far as the number of pins and times)  Also, do you think I've triggered the system as being spam by immediately saving the Pin to another board as I've been doing?  Or is this ok to actually do?

2) Should I delete old pins that are underperforming?  (I've made some not as great ones in the past, and some that didn't have any text.  Just wondering if these might be hurting my account at all?)

3) Is it true that it takes 30 days (or maybe longer) before Pinterest will pick up a pin and start showing it fully?  I've heard this before, just not sure if it's true or still true in 2022.

Thanks all!

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