Pinterest CRUSHED My Traffic Overnight! Here’s What Happened

Summary

Hey folks, I just came across an insightful video from Learn Wire discussing Pinterest traffic, and I think it's spot-on for those of us into software and marketing. This creator shares his experience with using Pinterest for traffic and highlights some challenges they're facing with a steep drop-off in traffic, possibly due to the use of AI-generated images. It's an eye-opener for anyone leveraging platforms like Pinterest for marketing or content distribution.

In this video, the creator logs into their Pinterest account and shares that despite quality content efforts and proper curation using tools like Canva, their traffic tanked, particularly after February 20th. This aligns with ongoing changes in Pinterest's terms of service, hinting at a crackdown on AI-generated content. The decline doesn't seem linked to the volume of pins, which was kept reasonable at around 25 per day—far from the 50-100 pins that others post. This has sparked a lot of curiosity and leaves open questions about whether Pinterest's new approach dictates strict guidelines on automated or AI-enhanced content.

This is one of those scenarios where a real-world test doesn't go as planned, but there's a lot to learn here. The creator suggests methods to troubleshoot and possibly maneuver around the issues, such as taking screenshots of AI images to remove metadata that flags them as AI-produced and using a combination of AI and non-AI content.

This video is by another creator, Learn Wire, and if these developments pique your interest, I recommend checking out their full video for a deeper dive.

For those of us who market software tools or manage online content, adapting to platform changes and understanding how AI-generated content is interpreted is crucial. Moreover, it's a classic example of the importance of diversifying traffic sources and not putting all eggs in one basket.

Key Takeaways:

• Pinterest Traffic Decline: After February 20th, a significant decline in Pinterest traffic was noted, likely due to changes in their handling of AI-generated content.
• Efforts on Quality: Despite using high-quality image tools like Canva, the drop hints at potential platform scrutiny against AI-based content.
• Meta Information Matters: AI images from tools might contain metadata pinpointing them as AI-created, potentially affecting traffic.
• Volume Isn't the Issue: Posting 25 pins daily, while competing with others who post up to 100, didn't seem to impact as much, suggesting the problem might be elsewhere.
• Diversify Traffic Sources: This goes to show the necessity of not relying solely on one platform for web traffic.
• Practical Solution: Taking screenshots of AI images to neutralize AI identifiers and editing them in tools like Canva might help circumvent potential downgrading.
• Engage and Test: Interact with community forums and experiment with different types of content to find what works best amidst changes.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting by being mindful of how Pinterest might treat AI-generated content. If you're utilizing AI images on Pinterest or similar platforms, a practical approach is to keep an eye on metadata. Taking a screenshot of AI-generated images can help remove identifying metadata, thus preventing any flags on the platform. This step is simple, low-cost, and can be done quickly.

A good way to ensure varied content is by mixing AI and non-AI images. Create some visuals manually with digital tools like Canva to blend with AI creations, which might aid in bypassing potential downgrading.

I suggest diversifying your traffic sources. If you're relying heavily on Pinterest, consider exploring other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or even your blog for disseminating your content. Do not put all your eggs in the Pinterest basket, so you aren't left stranded if traffic plummets.

An important step is engaging and testing various content types and how they perform. Take note when certain posts perform better and use that insight to adjust your strategy. For instance, experiment with listicle-type pins, as these may have higher click-through rates.

Lastly, connect with community forums or groups discussing Pinterest strategies. Engaging in conversations can provide new insights and possibly troubleshooting ideas on how to navigate any changes Pinterest might make regarding AI images.

Quotes by Learnwire

"It's important to share when things are not working out right"

– Learnwire

"No platforms want you to get traffic"

– Learnwire

"I thought that we were putting in quality"

– Learnwire

"Our traffic completely tanked"

– Learnwire

"I hope you guys appreciate this where I'm giving you guys the update and sharing the losses with you guys as well"

– Learnwire

Full Transcript

all right welcome back to learn wire I figured that I would do a an update on my Pinterest site and it's important to I think it's important to share when things are not working out right and I've always shared those things with you where we've gained success with a site or gotten started to get traffic and then things happen now I have watched a couple podcasts of people that do this exact thing where they use Pinterest to get traffic as well and some things are shifting and Pinterest is starting to I don't know if they're cracking down my stats would show that they definitely are cracking down on AI generated images and so forth I'm going to go over what I think is happening and then I'd love to start a conversation with you guys leave comments below if you are doing the same thing with Pinterest and stuff as well and if you're seeing your stats declining and stuff as well I'm going to show you the stats and then we'll kind of have a conversation about it so right up here I just logged in here's my keto Crush site or account on Pinterest and this is terms of service and privacy policy update right so this just came on right over here I haven't logged into the Pinterest uh account in a couple weeks and so this is what I'm getting so we're updating our terms of service and privacy policy to include details on how we train models including those using gen generative AI how long we retain your information and how we may share data for advertising off Pinterest manager data so there's some stuff with AI this I'm not really sure what that means that's just how they're using AI in their own work workflow so that's not really necessarily talking about us using AI images but what I have heard from like being on a uh listening to a podcast someone was identifying that Pinterest will soon be coming out with something that makes us kind of tick boox something that says that we used AI in our image or created it with the AI but what I think is happening even further so let me go and show you the stats real quick so we just you guys can know where we're coming from so we can come over here and you can just look at the stats they're just completely gone right we were building this up they just completely it it tanked right so this is like a here's the Google algorithm update right so it's like no platforms don't want you to get traffic they don't want you to do anything right you're you're just not allowed on to mass publish content at a fast rate or whatever but I thought we were doing it right I thought that we were putting in quality because when you go and actually look at the account you'll see that the images are quality we're using canva we're doing a lot of different things and I've actually slowed the publishing down to just 10 pins a day but some people are are posting or pinning 50 to 100 pins per day we never went over 40 and there are people out there that are getting 50 60,000 sessions on their site directly from Pinterest per month and they're pinning up to 40 50 pins per day so I don't think it was a pinning velocity I I just don't know if I can attest it to pinning velocity but you can see obviously something happened right over here on February 20th and then just boom in the last 3 weeks and this was a very star a very steep drop off in one day we lost all traffic so this in my opinion would be some type of manual review or something like that that that just happens there was a change in their algorithm or something or a manual review and it just tanked completely I've never seen anything like this on pinest before what do you guys uh think but and you can see all of our stats are just really really bad let's go and look at just like the last 90 days everything was just nice and steady right over here and then boom done okay so we were getting some really good outbound clicks getting traffic to our website we did have a nice process it wasn't just creating images and put and posting from these Auto Publishers right we were actually putting in a little bit more effort than that and it still kind of this still happened I'm curious if any of you guys are in like I think his name is Jesse Cunningham he has like a a forum something Maverick Forum I'm not a part of it but I know that they it's very he's very very big on teaching Pinterest and getting traffic and all that I'm curious if any of you guys are also in that forum and you guys have any more details just drop some you don't have to name names or anything like that but if you know anything about what's kind what's kind of going on in the industry are we seeing this happened to other people I can't imagine that I'm the only person on Earth that was using AI images and so just kind of crazy so those are the stats we obviously tanked we our traffic completely tanked we'll even go look at the account over here and we're down to 40,000 right that we were up to 120 plus thousand monthly views it's already cut by about 70% already and we can come over here and start looking so like these are these are the pins they're they're not the worst but what I think there's something possible happening that could be happening and again I want to get your guys' feedback if you have any uh thoughts on this or any knowledge or information some of these are still getting uh views and so forth so that's good some of the the recent ones and I will say that there was a couple week Gap where we had Auto publishing issues so we weren't able to publish and so that but but I don't think that that would impact the the traffic that drastically because this is a search engine you should be able to retain traffic even if you don't post for a while so what I what I've kind of discovered is if we go into like idiogram for example okay and I go and create this image right here and I'm going to go pin it well let's go and download this image real quick and we'll just go download it and then what I want to do is I want to go into my folder and I'm going to let's just move this over real quick I'm going to rightclick and I'm going to get info so I want to get get info and I want you guys to pay attention to what happens over here so I'm going to move this over we'll move this down I can't make it any bigger I don't think it's going to let me make it any bigger but you guys can see now here's what's happening what's possible if we take this image and just publish it get look what's happening there there's idiogram AI we know where this came from and where it was created we also know device make so if these platforms like Pinterest any other platform where you're like Facebook or Twitter or something like that where it's an Instagram where it's it's image heavy if they want to identify AI I mean shoot you can just put a filter on with AI we have two identifiers right here that this was made with AI so if we've mass-produced over 3,000 pins and they all other than the the ones that say canva those ones are not AI but all the ones that we published on the Pinterest account that are like this these ones right here they're going to have a they're going to be hardcoded at has idiogram AI so Pinterest knows that these are AI images straight up they have an algorithm they they know that these are AI images and so that's where I'm kind of starting to come in and start inspecting like huh so this one did get some a couple views that not pin clicks but those are just views and I just I want to start seeing if we can find any kind of correlation to some of the AI images possibly not getting views or something like that versus the ones that go into canva do seem like they right now are popping off more an easier way to look at this would be to go into the the analytics over the last 30 days and start looking at pins getting Impressions so this is kind of telling right here so this one's always been so that's already it's it's almost like an outlier it had so much rankings um and Authority for that for like keto biscuit or whatever so that one isn't going to really count so I would need to start seeing what's happening with these images see it tells you that we created in November so it already got a lot of views and so forth and this is still saying that it's still getting Impressions and so they're they're really it's this is kind of interesting so this one's a canva one but when we start scrolling up mostly what ranks the highest are the AI images so then this would go against my theory that they're cracking down on AI images right we did change the way we were kind of cre creating content and we were doing more over the last month we did start doing these listicle type posts because that is how a lot of other Pinterest type people are doing this exact same thing right Pinterest Niche blog blogging if you want to call it that this is what they said works the best which is listicle type of of content on your blogs and listicle type pins typically perform the best and get the the highest click-through rate to websites because people want to go and actually find out what those top 20 keto site dishes are so I'm just going to scroll through it there there really isn't anything that jumps out at me that basically says hey yeah all these AI images they're they're no longer working I'm going to go over here and look at maybe pin clicks and look and see so they're all still AI based images right there and so there's only like one canva one right and that's that that's this one right here all the rest of them are just C came straight from but I will say let's go back down and look at pay attention to the date that this was created and if it wasn't created in February or later then that means that this is just good oldfashioned like SEO Authority on Pinterest and so far none of these are new none of these are new pins there's one that was created in February I don't think we were quite hit yet right there but there's one and we'll keep coming through and look they're all from October November December they're all from when we first kind of started the project yeah these are all months and months old so may who knows maybe it's going to take some time for all the new ones to kind of get into the algorithm but there was just a steep steep Decline and really none of these are new so something's happening they're not indexing our newer content at all and it's just kind of a bummer I'm not going to completely lose hope what I am going to do is uh we're going to continue to post on this and try to Pivot and try some different things out and see what happens see if we can recover maybe this is just something that that happens it's normal and then and then your site your Pinterest account recovers and whatever but I just didn't think it I just didn't know it was a thing what I thought was on on a on a an account like Pinterest or something like that if you were doing something that you know if you're master we're not really doing anything illegal or mass producing to a point where it's it's spammy we're still putting in time we're still doing research we're still taking half of our images and putting them into a canva to make them even better and we weren't publishing more than 30 posts we were doing 25 a day that's that's reasonable so there wasn't there isn't really anything that we were doing that I consider like spamming or but it doesn't matter because we got hit but I thought that if you did get hit on one of these platforms that they would just like maybe put a temporary ban on your account or flag your account of some sort right like you wouldn't just keep your account kind of like the Google algorithm where you're just not going to get any traffic or whatever I didn't know that that was the case I thought that you would get kind of banned like if you've had a banned Etsy account or something like that and so very very interesting what are your guys's thoughts below but one of my Solutions possibly that we are kind of like working on is just to so what I've told my virtual assistant is that you'll we'll we'll open this up and we have this the image right now and basically what what you can do is if it's to inspect the image you want to in inspect the image you definitely want to inspect the image and make sure that everything looks good that there's nothing that's if it's it's just straight up screaming AI something's really wrong with it don't use the image and they've been instructed not to use any bad images I've also kind of said not to use like the keto snacks and stuff because they usually get the it'll it'll create generic bags with that are not real product right so we don't use those and we we try not to use text on the AI images but what a little tip that you could do and that we're testing out is you can take a screenshot so you take a screenshot of the actual image right capture and then once you take the screenshot you can come up over here and we can right click on that screenshot and we can go to get info and then once we do that now look now it's just it came from our computer and there's no there's nothing on here that says AI now we can go and rename this if we want to or whatever but now it's not going to say AI on it and that could be possible solution for your AI images and then when you go and upload them they won't be hardcoded as AI if that makes sense so what do you guys think this is the good thing that I my whole business doesn't run on Pinterest and I haven't made any money from this I know that's one of the first questions people ask well how much money are you making like from pin your Pinterest websites or how much money are you making from SEO so I've never claimed to be an SEO expert and I never claim to be a a Pinterest expert or anything like that either these are fun tests that I'm going out and doing we were starting to gain a lot of momentum right over here we were getting like what 2 or 3,000 clicks per month and the site was starting to grow there's other people that are getting 50,000 plus clicks from Pinterest per month and so this could be a lot of things right like I could even know be over analyzing this maybe this could just be that the keto Niche is one of the most competitive niches um on Pinterest uh anything to do with diet and food uh especially the keto diet it's probably the most competitive most known diet right now over the last 5 years everybody's on it maybe it's competition and we just kind of got hit or cuz it definitely wasn't growing at the pace that I wanted it to or expected so I'm not throwing in the towel on Pinterest like I said this is definitely not as much of a um like a hard blow um as like putting thousands of dollars into SEO and so forth and then your site gets gets hit this is just a a social media Network Pinterest that you're not getting traffic to right so it's just not that big deal now we're going to slow down the project and just see what kind of happens over the next coming months maybe I'll slow this down to even just five posts a day for a while and then what we'll do is we'll actually I'm going to work on another site that's in a completely different Niche and we'll test that out and see what kind of results we can get over the next few months so I'd love to open up that conversation drop some comments what do you think have you has this happened to you what do you kind of think is happening right here is it an AI hit did Pinterest hit my account because of the velocity of 25 pins per day did they hit us because we were using AI images I think everybody using AI images on Pinterest right now up to the point where people that are not are super annoyed so I kind of get that I do get where they're coming from where people are actually taking picture of their keto recipes and so forth and then you have people like Jesse Cunningham and myself I don't think I'm doing it at the same level but you have people that are teaching other people how to mass create and pin 100 pins per day with AI images all that kind of stuff right so did did everybody else get hit too or am I the only one that got hit what are your thoughts on this what do you think is going on with this is it the niche or was it the AI images did I actually get hit obviously there was a massive drop off we did get hit by something so I wanted to give you guys an update I'm going to share the because I can also tell you that I I I I did a a warrior plus launch last week and we did $18,000 in sales in 5 days so I do know how to make money online but it's mostly with affiliate marketing it's most mostly with YouTube it's mostly with a a completely different way than just building out websites and getting traffic to them so so I'm not my feelings aren't hurt we'll probably pivot to another site and test that out as well thank you guys so much for sticking with me today's secret a word I'm going to do this sometimes just because I think it's kind of funny and it's kind of fun today's secret word is monkey so if you type monkey below I know you watch the entire video thank you guys so much and I hope you guys appreciate this where I'm I'm giving you guys the update and sharing the the losses with you guys as well and not just sharing all the success that I have online right so thank you guys so much and we'll talk to you soon