08/17/2024 – Updated with new information regarding the recent Pinterest algorithm update
If you use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website, a significant drop in outbound clicks can seriously hurt your business. Last week, around midnight on Saturday, many accounts, including my own, saw their Pinterest analytics – impressions, outbound clicks, and saves – drop upwards of 90%. Here is a summary of what we know so far.
Why did my Pinterest impressions drop so suddenly?
As with any social media platform, there are higher traffic days and lower traffic days on Pinterest. Slow decreases over a period of time tend to indicate that your content is no longer resonating with your audience. However, precipitous drops may indicate that your account has been flagged for a ToS violation. This prevents your content from reaching your normal audience.
What should I do if this happens?
Reach out to Pinterest support! That’s what I did after I logged into my account on Saturday morning and noticed something was wrong. I was concerned that my account had been flagged as spam by mistake. I read that this happens from time to time. The response I received was, “I’ve checked your account and can confirm that your account isn’t flagged on our end for any issue that could be causing a drop in analytics and Pin impressions.”
This was shocking because I could not figure out why else my well-performing content seemed to suddenly be invisible. After reading some discussions on other social media platforms, I realized that this was a widespread issue. If it was not just an issue with my account, it was likely some unfortunate change to their algorithm, right?
How to tell if your pins have been deindexed by the Pinterest search algorithm
I knew that last week, certain pins of mine were a top result for specific keywords. So, I decided to see if that content was still ranking. Nothing came up. Then, I searched “all pins” for my account name. Again, no posts linking to my website came up. The only pins that appeared were pins linked to my Instagram account or old idea pins with no link. That’s when I realized that all of my pins that linked to my website had been deindexed. I believe this is why so many of us have seen a steep decrease in their Pinterest analytics.
What is the difference between being deindexed and being shadowbanned?
When you have a new account, it may take Pinterest some time to index your content. This is why new accounts take months of consistent pinning to see traffic. If your content has been deindexed, it is similar to having a new account because people can’t easily find your content. Content may be deindexed if it is misidentified as spam. A shadowban usually occurs when your content has been reported as inappropriate. Your profile or some of your boards may not be viewable by others. I used my personal account, which does not follow my business account, to confirm that my profile and boards were still visible.
A second response from Pinterest regarding this problem
Once I realized my content had been deindexed, I reached out to Pinterest support again with questions. Here is the response I received: “I’m sorry for the trouble you’re experiencing. Please be assured my team is aware of the issue and we’re working hard to resolve it. Anomalies like these can take some time to be resolved so we do not have a definitive timeline for a resolution, but we’re doing our best to have this fixed as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience.” So, there we have it – these issues we are all experiencing are not the typical ebb and flow of traffic.
Other Pinterest issues that users have reported
In addition to the issues with traffic, the Pinterest search function and related pins suggestion feature were not functional for many users this afternoon (8/12). This outage checker reports that a major outage has occurred. To me, this signals that the two issues – the outage and the deindexing of users’ pins – may be related. I’m hopeful that these issues will be resolved for us all soon. I’ll update this post with any additional correspondence I receive from Pinterest so be sure to check back here soon!
08/17/2024 – update
Throughout the week, there have been numerous other issues and reported outages. Users started reporting their boards and all associated pins had been removed on Tuesday (8/13); a partial outage was reported for Pinterest boards. On Wednesday (8/14), a complete outage was reported for related pins.
How have these issues affected my Pinterest analytics this week?
Tuesday night (8/13) / Wednesday morning, a handful of recent pins started appearing in the search results again and my numbers increased throughout the day on Wednesday. I assumed that it meant the issues had been resolved. I assumed wrong. On Thursday, everything dropped again, and the pins that were reindexed on Tuesday were gone again. Currently, the pins that are getting the most clicks to my website are “other pins”, which are pins other accounts have saved from my website.
On Wednesday I received the following update from Pinterest support: “Hi Sasha, We’ve fixed the glitch that you reported to us—thanks for taking the time to let us know. If you are on mobile, be sure to update to the latest version of the Pinterest app. If you’re still experiencing trouble, respond to this email and I’ll take a look.” Since I noticed that at least a few of my pins had been reindexed and my analytics were improving, I assumed things would continue to bounce back over the next few days.
Based upon internet chatter, it appears that others experienced a similar uptick in traffic before falling again. Given all of the technical issues that Pinterest has had this week, I wouldn’t be surprised if the adjustments they made in an effort to solve one problem caused another.
How has the Pinterest algorithm changed (as of 8/17/24)?
The number of ads on the platform has increased. After this week’s mobile app update, there have been many poor reviews of the app in the Apple App Store complaining about the increase in ads. This time of year is a prime time for marketing products associated with the start of school or the changing season. More ads shown on the home feed or in the search results means less space for other content.
In terms of non-sponsored content, my home feed now consists of mostly new pins (< 1 month old). How can I tell? I use the Keywords Everywhere Google Chrome extension. You can also click on a pin and check the source code (ctrl + u). These new pins are from personal accounts or they are pins not linked to a website. The older pins in my home feed are mostly shopping pins or a few are from very high traffic websites (like Architectural Digest).
Is this change due to the algorithm favoring new content, not linked to a website, or is it because a majority of the older content linked to personal websites was deindexed? I decided to try some new things and analyze the data. As an engineer (chemical not computer), my job is to perform experiments and analyze the results. So, I decided to use some of the same principles here. I will report back with the results soon!
Thank you for your research! My Pinterest traffic also decreased significantly and I received the same first answer from them. The second mail they sent you gives me hope that they will resolve the issue and all the work we did on Pinterest is not lost.
I was honestly shocked they acknowledged that there was a problem! My correspondence with Pinterest is what compelled me to write this post. I wanted others to know the issues they were experiencing were not just the typical ebbs and flows of social media traffic. I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been affected by these issues too! I really hope that things get resolved soon.
Best,
Sasha
Hello Sasha, thank you for looking into this. I found a Reddit post that explains what’s supposedly happening with Pinterest. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but it’s quite concerning. Could you take a look and share your thoughts?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pinterest/comments/1euhjpp/pinterest_traffic_dropping_heres_whats_really/
I appreciate you writing this post. When these algorithm changes happen and traffic decreases it’s scary, but knowing that other bloggers are in it with you and being able to discuss what’s going on is so helpful. Personally my traffic is down about 50% but I feel confident it won’t last long. Last year in May I experienced a sudden 90% drop but I kept consistent with my pinning strategy and traffic returned to normal after two months. Hang in there ❤️