How To Find Your Stolen Pins On Pinterest, And What To Do Next

byRoseblogger

2K followers

Updated 4 years ago

I had mentioned the issue of stolen pins in another post but I did not go into it much because that post was about branding your pins. Today I want us to talk about how to find your stolen pins, and what to do after you find them.

OK, so I had this pin, and it has been my best performing pin ever, with over 20k views, and about 1k link clicks. And then about a week ago, it's performance started dropping, and I didn't know why.

So I started researching what could have gone wrong, well turns out, someone had downloaded the image and re uploaded the pin with their link, and it ranked immediately and now it was driving traffic to that person's blog.

I was angry, and my first thought was to report the pin, but then again I remembered reading somewhere that if your pin is stolen you should not report it because, you will also suffer. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself here so Let's dive into the post.

First things first, how do you find out if your pin has been stolen?

How To Find Out If Your Pin Has Been Stolen

You most likely know your best performing pins, actually pinterest will show you top three pins, and they do send you weekly report (via email) on your best pins. So Once you notice a sudden drop in performance, it's time to investigate.

Go to that pin, and check the keyword you were ranking for, then type that keyword on pinterst's search bar, and then check the pin, if it popes up, hover over the pin and see if it still contains your link. If it contains, someone else's link, then it means someone has stolen your pin.

If the pin is not ranking high as it used to, then that means it has been knocked of the rank by a better pin, so maybe it's not stolen. But if it's still ranking high, then check the link, if it has a different link than yours then as I mentioned, your pin has been stolen.

Now, at this point you will be very angry and you will think of contacting pinterest as well as reporting the pin. Don't do it. And I will tell you why.

Reason Why You Should Not Report Your Stolen Pins

If you report the pin as stolen, and select remove all material(which is what most people select) that pin will be deleted by Pinterest, and that means, because Pinterest is an image search engine, they will also delete that image from your boards and any other place that image is found on Pinterest.

Which means, even the little traffic you were getting from the pin, will go to zero. So what do you do then?

What To Do After You Find Out Your Pin Has Been Stolen

Once you find the pin, and you establish that it's linking to another blog, click on the 3 dots at the top of the pin you will see 3 options, Download image, report pin, and get pin embed code

What you are going to do is download the image, and make sure you don't change anything, just download it to your computer and save it as it is, do not change the name of the file because the pin contains a code from pinterest to help it rank exactly where it was when you re upload it.

Now the next thing you want to do is click on create pin, and then use the image you just downloaded, and link to the same blog post you had linked to originally. you can target similar keyword that the thieve was targeting.

For example, Let's say your pin was about how to detoxify your body, and Let's say, the thieve used detox recipes as their targeted keyword, find a way to target a variation of that keyword that way your pin will rank again, and start driving traffic back to your website.

Once Pinterest notices that you have re uploaded the pin, they will know that you are the rightful owner of the pin, and therefore, they will not send traffic to the other blog, and probably will start invastigating that Pinterest account, since they can see that the pin was originally linked to your blog, and the original image is still saved to your boards.

One thing to remember, if the pin has been edited and no longer contains your branding, then you might want to just report it because the person could report you as the thieve, since they have re branded the pin,(its unlkely for them to report you but they could) and then it's a process to prove your innocence, which will include you submitting your original pin, and that's what you have to do anyway, when you report the pin.

How To Report A Stolen Pin On Pinterest

If it comes to that, then what you are going to do is go to the 3 dots, select report pin, and then scroll all the way down to where you will see my intellectual property, select it. You need to check the copyright box, then you have to prove ownership, by submitting your article that contains the pin on your website, or by submitting the original pin that contains your branding.( I told you branding your pins is paramount)

You then have to submit contact information, and also you have the assign strike option which is a punishment to the thieve. Once an account gets many strikes, then they will face serious trouble including being banned from Pinterest.

Remember, Do Not Check The Box That Says Remove All. By checking this box, you are telling Pinterest to delete all pins that are related to the pin you are reporting, which will include the pins in your own boards, and groupboards.

Other Reasons Why Your Pins Would Decline In Perfomance

OK, now, before you panic and think many of your pins are stolen, there are other reasons for your pins to drop in performance, that includes, a pin that had gone viral, but now it's going back to normal, which means it's not receiving the same saves and link clicks it originally got when it went viral.

Old Pins, Pinterest has started favoring fresh content, so the old pins that used to drive tons of traffic to your blog, will not continue to do so. This means you need to create fresh pins for your old posts.

Conclusion

Pinteres is a great source of traffic, but I think they need to do something to sort out the issue of stolen pins. Its very easy for a pin to be stolen and that is why I said in my previous Pinterst post, that it's crucial, that you brand your pins. When asked by a TailWind representative(TailWind Works very closely with Pinterest and it's the only Pinterest approved Scheduler), what they are doing about this issue. Pinterest said that they are working hard to combat the issue of stolen content and promised results soon.

They said one of the things they are focusing on is making sure that the content of the pin matches the landing page, and they also emphasized on branding pins, either by adding your logo, or your URL on Your Pins.

You must put the name of your blog on all your Pins., even though they(the thieves) could edit the pin in Canva and cover your branding, it makes then put some efforts.

Anyway, I am going to stop there for now, and let you share your thoughts. What do you think about this topic? Do you always remember to check if the pins you are saving to your boards are not stolen?

Have you had your pin stolen?

Please share your thoughts below, and don't forget to hit the like this button.

Thank you for your time.

Rose.