Pinterest: Advanced SEO Techniques (Technical SEO)

PINTEREST
ADVANCED SEO
TECHNIQUES
Disclosing some of their methods
JOSE MARÍA PRIETO-PUGA FERREIRA SEO SPECIALIST
Source Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/apple-applications-apps-cell-phon

PINTEREST: Advanced SEO Techniques
JOSE MARÍA PRIETO-PUGA FERREIRA – SEO SPECIALIST
Nowadays, Pinterest has achieved and awesome
visibility in Google Search.
We can see very often how Pinterest is populating
all the SERPS for many searches.

On the other hand, Google does not allow that the
same domain (or subdomain) populates more
than two positions in the same SERP. However,
Pinterest is populating much more than two
positions using their TLD domains!

Indeed, we can see how sometimes Pinterest is
ranking with different language than the user. For
example, Pinterest is ranking using a South Korean
domain (.kr) for the Spanish users. In addition, after
checking carefully all the source code of this .kr TLD,
I have seen that it contains their respective hreflang
attribute properly indicated for all the languages.
Therefore, Google is ranking for Spanish a .kr
domain which contains an hreflang attribute for the
Spanish version. Awesome! 🤯😅🤦‍♂️

What did Pinterest for achieve this?
What they are doing for ranking even better than
the original sources of the images?
Remember that Pinterest do not own the
images. Therefore, why Pinterest is ranking
better than the original sources?

According to Creative Commons
License (Attribution 4.0 Generic)
https://creativecommons.org/license
s/by/4.0/ . When you publish any
image that you do not own, at least
you must provide the name of the
creator and attribution parties, a
copyright notice, a license notice, a
disclaimer notices, text/URI/link.
👇👇👇
Source Image: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

As a user, if we use the browser,
we can see the link to the image
source. Therefore, is Pinterest
linking properly for everyone
and everything? Is Pinterest
linking to the material of the
images while they are obtaining
a benefit of this practice? Let’s
go to check it…
Source Images: https://www.pinterest.es/peraromera/todas-las-fases-de-goku/

OPS… I am not be able to inspect
this element using the browser. I
am not be able to right-click on
the “link”… Why? 😱
LET’S GO TO SEE IT VIA THE
SOURCE CODE!! 😏
Source Image: https://www.pinterest.es/peraromera/todas-las-fases-de-goku/

There is not any link to the image on the source code!
Therefore, Pinterest is hiding all those links via JavaScript
to the Search Engines. This is an advanced SEO Technique.
More specifically, what Pinterest is doing is obfuscating
these links via JavaScript. Therefore, the URL only appear
after the user hover this element with the mouse cursor.
In other words, after an on-hover JavaScript event.

The obfuscation of the links is an advance SEO technique. It is often used for improving or optimizing
the Internal Page Rank. I never have seen before this technique used for avoiding to link to the
owner of any material or image (via HTML link) .
According to the Wikipedia: “Hyperlink computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a reference
to data that the user can follow by clicking or tapping”. Therefore, based on the Wikipedia
definition, the users can follow those obfuscated links when they are clicking on them.
Therefore…

It seems to be legal on this point.
However, in my opinion, this practice is clearly
against of the “spirit” of the Creative
Commons License. Pinterest is not allowing
any Search Engines seeing and clicking the
links to go to page of the owners
Therefore, in my opinion, Pinterest is taking an advantage
of its domain authority for ranking higher on the Search
Engines without allowing the Search Engines discovering
the links to the source of the material or image

ABOUT THE HTML LINKS: The rel=“nofollow” and rel=“ugc” attributes have been
created for this kind of purpose. You might check this article of the general
guidelines of Google titled “Qualify your outbound links to Google”.
Why Pinterest is hiding the links to the images for
the search engines then? Why Pinterest does not
allow the Search Engines see the rel=“nofollow” or
rel=“ugc” link at least?
I suspect that if Pinterest would show the links to the material for the
Search Engines properly, then Pinterest would not rank as higher. In
this case, the legitim owner of the material probably also would get
any benefit of this on the Search Engines. Therefore, they could
compete with more justice against Pinterest on the Search Engines.
That is my opinion, I am not 100% sure about this. However, is what I
think based on my experience and knowledge.😋

If right now Pinterest is ranking higher… Could the websites that owns
the images be penalized in any way on the Search Engines? Could
Google thinks that the “original” content of those images are been
placed in Pinterest? From Google eyes, could be Pinterest the legitim
owner instead of the real legitim owner? 😱
I hope that not. However, this possibility scares me.
Imagine that you have an ecommerce. Then your ecommerce
spends resources and money in creating a unique image of
your products. Then, someone decide pin all your products
images on Pinterest. Imagine that this action means that
your effort is a waste of time and money 😥

Should Creative Commons review its License for
including the Search Engines as any other user?
In my opinion… YES
And you, what do
you think about this?

Pinterest: Advanced SEO Techniques (Technical SEO)

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