As you might know, on Aug, 2024 Pinterest had a major update. A lot of the accounts dropped and now receive 0 traffic. I dug into the data to tell you what happened
Disclaimer: The data is not accurate, and it's biased. I've used 238 accounts who signed up to BlogToPin(a tool to create beautiful Pinterest Pins on scale). I then filtered them down to 168(to keep only active ones). Some of these people ended up using BlogToPin, some ended up trying BlogToPin and then using another tool, some - started pinning manually, and some - gave up pinning at all. It's important to understand because it gives the variety of outcomes and makes it a bit representative. If you have any better data - feel free to share, I'd be glad to take a look at it.
I also recovered a YouTube video about it. Feel free to check it out
I'd show you some data first, and then try to explain it a bit, so read till the end
Overall stats
I've analyzed 168 accounts and here are the main stats:
- ~62% are stable
- ~24.5% are growing
- ~13.5% are dropping
Deeper data
Among the growing/dropping accounts not all of them are equal. Some grew by 10-20%, some dipped by 99%
Among 168 accounts:
- 8.59% had a big drop
- 14.11% had a significant growth
Some of the accounts(half of them) had a recovery, but later about that
Average Views Per Day
As you can see, after Aug, 4/Aug, 10 there was a big significant drop. However, after that(due to the recovery & new accounts growing) the average views per day is ATH
The same also goes for average clicks per day, median clicks per day and median views per day
As you can also see, on Sep, 6 there was also a significant drop, but so far it seems like everything's recovered
Chance for a recovery?
As I said, half of the accounts which had a big drop saw a recovery after the update
Some of the websites even saw a more significant growth a few days ago, but we still need to wait to see
So is there a chance?
Not Really
Well, the full chart is self-explanatory. It's very similar to all the charts within Google HCU. It recovers a bit, but the overall picture is awful
That being said, worth noticing that some websites saw a bigger bump during last few days. It can be a part of the bigger recovery, but I wouldn't rely on that
AI vs NO AI
We all know Pinterest is currently dominated by AI
All the popular niches(at least before the update) were AI dominated - fashion, home decor, DIY, food, drinks, etc.
So how did the update affect AI vs non-AI websites?
As you can see, it's ~ equal in terms of AI/NO AI websites. On average, AI websites got hit more, but also other AI websites grew more.
I think it's just a bias in my data, as most of the accounts signing up to BlogToPin have AI images, so it's natural they're more dominant
I wouldn't worry, and if AI works on that - just keep using it
FAQ
Now, time for a quick faq to answer some of the questions you might have
Pinterest Still Worth It?
Yep. As you can see, it's still growing on average. Some people might've dropped Pinterest after the update, so it's a perfect time to start building a Pinterest account
Were all the drops just a bug?
When the August Update started, a lot of people thought it was connected to Pinterest outages. It's not. The outages were fixed in a day or two, but the drop was still there. And dropped accounts usually don't recover
What about age? Older or younger accounts got hit?
Mostly younger. I only saw a few older accounts which had a drop.
But you need to understand that the data is biased. Accounts who are 10+ years old probably don't want to change anything -> they don't sign up to BlogToPin -> I don't have them in my data
How to recover? Can I do something to fix it?
Hard. I tried a few strategies. None of them worked. I tried pinning manually(using BlogToPin's export to csv), changing strategy of pinning, templates. Didn't help me. I haven't yet seen any account which recovered. Creating a new pinterest account also probably won't work
What you can try is to create a new domain, and a new Pinterest account. It's a long shot, but still
Regarding those account who had a "recovery" - they didn't do anything extra, and there's no pattern. Some of them kept pinning the same thing, some - stopped pinning at all, no one drastically changed anything. But still saw some recovery
What do I suggest?
Diversify. Don't rely on one account. Don't rely on one channel(And use BlogToPin ;))
Only AI-heavy niches affected?
In the beginning of update there was an idea that only AI-heavy niches are affected
It's not true. Of course, something like decor or fashion got hit more(partly because there are more accounts), but I've seen marketing, finances, and even ecoms(real brands) get clapped
What do I think really happened?
I guess Pinterest changed the weight they give to each type of accounts(new, old, AI, non-AI, etc). It didn't leave space for some accounts and they got hit. I didn't see any big difference between hit accounts and not hit accounts
Collages still work?
From what I can see, the algo has changed not only regarding the accounts, but also regarding the content type. For some niches, in top results you won't see any collages. For some - they're still a king.
A lot of big accounts keep doing them even in the niches where they're not currently at the top
They still rock because bring you much better CTRs. But you should test yourself
Last Word
Start new accounts
Take risk
Research niches you're creating content for
Use BlogToPin