While scrolling through my Pinterest feed last week, my eyes widened in pure dessert desire over so many images: these red velvet oreo brownies, this skinny frozen chocolate s’mores pie, this chocolate chai layer cake… I eagerly repined them onto a few of my boards before realizing some of my categories desperately needed a little loving attention. I updated their titles, reorganized their content, and—most importantly—changed multiple pins’ URLs.
That’s right; several of my pins led to random spam sites that had absolutely nothing to do with the photo. A blueberry protein smoothie took me to a pork tenderloin recipe, a bowl of cinnamony oatmeal linked back to seitan tacos, and moist banana muffins led to a mushroom risotto. (I’d never actually save that last dish; I’m deathly allergic to mushrooms!)
Even while browsing today, I spotted a few “stolen” photos of gorgeous content originally posted by top-name bloggers and friends…
♥ Lindsay’s creamy cauliflower sauce on her blog Pinch of Yum
♥ Sally’s skinny chocolate peanut butter swirl cupcakes on her blog Sally’s Baking Addiction
♥ Natasha’s vegan vanilla birthday cake on her blog The Cake Merchant
♥ Averie’s chocolate chip and cherry blondies on her blog Averie Cooks
These talented ladies—and everyone else creating new, original content—deserve our Pinterest traffic, much more than those other spammy sites. To reduce the chance of repining these “stolen” image pins, here’s my #1 Best Pinterest Repin Practice:
Yes, you can trust certain pins to lead to the original website, such as those from a blogger’s official “blog” board (for example, my Foods for the Soul board), without needing to double-check whether they link to the correct URL. But when in doubt, click through. It only requires 5-10 seconds, yet it guarantees that the creators earn the credit and traffic they deserve.
And that means the world to them.
I recently adopted this simple technique, and it greatly reduced the amount of time required for repining while still confirming the images linked to the proper content.
- While scrolling through Pinterest, right-click on any interesting pins and select “Open Link in New Tab” for each one. This makes it easy to skim through lots of potential repins at once without losing your place!
- Click on the image of each pin you opened in a new tab. For the ones that lead to the correct website, repin them to whichever of your boards you’d like!
- For any pins that lead to the incorrect URL, do a quick Google image search. No, you don’t need to close that pin’s tab just yet! Most of the time, the caption is correct, even if the image leads to a different website. Copy and paste that caption into a Google image search, and find the picture that matches your pin of interest. It’ll usually be one of the first few results.
- Now that you’ve found the correct URL, you have 2 options…
- Pin the content directly from that site instead. Most websites contain a “Pin It” option somewhere on their page, or you can use the official Pinterest “Pin It” button for your browser’s bookmarks menu. (I highly recommend the second option! See here for directions on adding it to your browser.)
- Repin the incorrect pin AND replace its URL with the correct one. After repining the image you first opened in that new tab, a window will pop up reading, “Added to ___ Board” with a “See it now” button. Click that red button, and when you reach your new pin, click the “Edit” pencil icon in the bottom right corner. (Alternatively, if you’re viewing your entire board, the “Edit” icon will be in the top right of each individual pin.) When the “Edit Pin” screen appears, copy and paste the correct URL into the “Source” bar. Click the red “Save Changes” button.
I included a set of example photos above. However, because I pinned them directly from my friend Sally’s official blog board, they didn’t require any changes.
The #1 Best Pinterest Repin Practice is that easy—and totally painless. This quick little method ensures that bloggers, magazines, and other websites get the traffic they deserve. And since many of us spend 10-15 hours developing, photographing, and writing each recipe, article, and blog post for you, we really, really, really appreciate it! ♥
Great post and thanks for the linkback despite you seeing my content being stolen. Frustrating but nice to know others do catch this type of stuff 🙂
You’re welcome Averie! I wish I could edit the links on those spam pins myself; you create amazing, mouthwatering recipes and really deserve the Pinterest traffic!
Thank you for teaching such a wonderful lesson! I was unawrare that my pins were not linking back back to the original source. Since my blog exists on featuring recipes from others ( always with the name and link back in the first sentence and again at the end) I never dreamt that pinterest or even twitter wasn’t automatically doing the same! I am all about highlighting wonderful recipes not seen in a bit and giving additional clicks to the original author! I will be more careful with pins from now on and check out tweets, too to make sure they follow this same protocol. Thx again!
You’re welcome Marilyn! I really appreciate the effort that you’re putting into making sure the original authors receive traffic. That’s really sweet of you! It’s wonderful to find other bloggers who are so supportive of the food blogging community. 🙂
Great post! I too have done Google image searches to find the correct blog. It is very frusterating (especially on tumblr) when recipes link to spam.
I agree Cassidy, and it’s wonderful to hear that you’re already working on the issue and searching Google images. You’re a very sweet and cognizant person to do so! 🙂
I so know that bad Pinterest repins is an issue, but I have to admit in the past it always seemed like too much effort to check everything I repin. Reading this made me realize I should just take the time and do it though, so thanks for the kick in the butt. 🙂 (In a good way!) I actually had one ice cream photo of mine go pretty viral on Tumblr, and then Pinterest, but it was connected to a recipe for a completely different healthy frozen yogurt type thing which probably wouldn’t end up looking anything like the full-fat chocolate ice cream in the photos. That was a mess but I fortunately was able to get the source off of Tumblr at least by contacting them. Ahh!
P.S. Thanks for the linkup – very sweet!
You’re welcome Alexandra, and I’m sorry to hear about your chocolate ice cream episode! That’s incredibly frustrating, especially since there isn’t much you can do to fix it on Pinterest. It sounds like you handled it beautifully though, and I really hope it doesn’t happen again in the future!
I ALWAYS click the food links before I pin, because I actually only pin food I think I’ll get around to making! I want to make sure it’s something I’d enjoy, so I click THEN pin!! GOOD to know this is a good way to do things!
You’re always so smart and on top of things Brittany! I definitely have a tendency to over-pin compared to you… My eyes are bigger than my stomach! 😉
AWESOME post Amy!!
Thanks Dorothy! 🙂
This is a great tip! I’ve never thought to do this before. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Sasha! It’s hard with so many fabulous pins out there to take the time to click through each one, but it really helps. And as a talented blogger yourself, I’m sure you appreciate the traffic too! 🙂
I had no idea that some of the URLs wouldn’t work. Thanks for opening my eyes. 🙂 I’ve just started to revamp my pinterest boards so this helps.
I’m glad this helps Robin! There are so many people on Pinterest pulling photos from other links; it’s hard to keep everything straight. If you’ve applied for rich pins, that should help your blog’s pins do well! 🙂