WHY Do People Block Pinterest From Their Site?

[Planet13]

I see there is a sticky thread at the top of this forum called, "How To Stop Pinterest PinIt Crowd Sourced Scraping".

But my question is WHY would you want to block pinterest?

I apologize if that sounds like a stupid question. I had about 150 visitors from pinterest in 2014 and we had a couple of sales from those visitors.

Shouldn't people like me be ENCOURAGING people to pin our photos?

Or is there something I am not realizing here?

Is there a way to targe "scrapers" without blocking regular users?

Thanks in advance.

[martinibuster]

Partially because it's seen as a copyright violation. Partially because it's seen as traffic stealing when a Pinterest post begins receiving traffic with their images, traffic that a web publisher feels should be going to them.

There is another point of view that favors Pinterest sharing and I believe that is the more mainstream opinion. The anti-Pinterest wing is in the minority, a fringe viewpoint. The founder of Venganza.org (Flying Spaghetti Monster) told me many years ago that he considers images on his site to be propaganda for promoting his site and he encouraged hot linking as well as reposting his images on other sites.

[Planet13]

Thank you for the response!

Can I assume from your comments that - in your opinion - you would recommend that a site with a limited marketing budget but nice photographs of its should allow / encourage photos of its products to be pinned?

[tangor]

Product photos, while certainly qualified as copyrighted material, is not quite the same heartbreak that an "artist", "photo-journalism", "creative" photographer/artist/illustrator might feel about losing traffic.

If your product, not the photo, is what is important, then make that judgement to allow or disallow.

I don't know if there's a firm consensus yet that pinterest actually increases commerce/sales, so keep that in mind.

[engine]

I'd also support the fact that it's down to individual choice. If it benefits the site/user, through brand building, or sales, it's got to be of value. It can be used in viral campaigns, too.

But, if it's your a person's copyrighted work just getting shared around for free with no tangible benefits, I would support the blocking of the scraping.

Just because it's shared does not mean it's free to take advantage of.

[Planet13]

Thanks for your input, tangor & engine.

Now I guess the next step would be figuring out how to maximize the benefit of having images pinned while avoiding the negative.

My biggest fear would be competitors using our images on their own ecommerce sites (I realize they could do this without Pinterest at all and just scrape them from our sites directly).

[engine]

How about watermarks, planet13?

[Planet13]

How about watermarks, planet13?

Well, I DO use them.

Of course the challenge is making them noticable (for branding purposes as well as to help prevent competitors stealing my images).

But there is always a fine line between making a watermark noticeable, or being so large as to distract significantly from the attractiveness of the photo.

But yes, I do use watermarks and plan on continuing to use them.

[chrisv1963]

But my question is WHY would you want to block pinterest?

Because Pinterest is the biggest scraper ever. They developed a tool that helps people steal content from other websites and place it on the Pinterest server. Pinterest is not a charity organization. It's a business and their target is to make as much money as possible in the future ... with the content of others.

Pinterest is a good place for businesses that want to showcase their products. However, you could see this as a sort of link building which in the long run might hurt your Google rankings. Also, you might get duplicate content (duplicate images) issues at some point and lose organic traffic to your website.

For other websites Pinterest is a disaster. Why would people want to visit your website if they can see all your photos, graphics with "how to" instructions, ... on Pinterest?

[Marshall]

Because Pinterest is the biggest scraper ever.

And Google isn't?

Marshall

[lucy24]

Serious question, because I don't have the kind of site that's attractive to pinterest users so I honestly don't know:

When pinterest first showed up, they had one behavior that incurred them instant hatred and global lockouts in some quarters. Images shown on pinterest pages sent your own page-- not pinterest-- as referer, so ordinary hotlink protections didn't work. Do they still do this? The two alternatives are sending pinterest as referer, or no referer at all. (In the latter case I actually wouldn't know if a picture is getting pinned, unless maybe there's a mysterious flurry of referer-less requests for the same picture.)

[helleborine]

OH yes, Google and all search engines have become image scrapers.

That is why I have removed access to my image folders to all search engines. And of course Pinterest.

It's not the business I'm in, but something close would be cross-stitching maps. The image is the product. Steal the image, steal the product.

[LifeinAsia]

And Google isn't?

I get far more exposure/traffic from Google than I do Pinterest.

[htmlbasictutor]

If you are worried about your images being posted to Pinterest you can:

- watermark them as already suggested

- add nopin to the coding for images you do not want pinned

- add OpenGraph and Twitter card coding to the head of the pages and decide what image you want shared on Pinterest and the other major social networks.

Regarding why some block image sharing: Because some make a living from their artwork and those who share sometimes do not give credit where credit is due. e.g. cute animal pics How often to you really know whose image that was originally once it has made it's rounds on the net?

[helleborine]

Some image products are not suitable for watermarking.

Even more effective is to remove your images from search engines because the nopin code is ineffective.

It's not always only about credit. Often it's about Pinterest competing for your website visitors with your own content, against you.

[incrediBILL]

Some of us simply don't want anyone using our stuff without permission, plain and simple.

[chrisv1963]

It's not always only about credit. Often it's about Pinterest competing for your website visitors with your own content, against you.

110% correct!

To me it is very simple. Pinterest is stealing our content and right now very busy trying to find ways (advertising, sponsored pins amongst the illegally copied content, ...) to make lots of money out of our stuff and to keep shareholders happy.

[blend27]

[pinterest.com...]

I have a good faith belief that the disputed use of the copyrighted material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law (e.g., as a fair use).
I state under penalty of perjury that I am the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of the copyright or of an exclusive right under the copyright that is allegedly infringed.

They have 31 of pristine quality images that took me a while to make. All images have my site.tld within the image.

e.g., as a fair use

Expensive Adobe Photoshop
Very expensive camera
My Time


Some hoochie named Blanca just felt it is OK to do it.

[chrisv1963]

Some hoochie named Blanca just felt it is OK to do it.

And Pinterest is providing the technology and server space to help Blanca violate your copyrights and steal your images to put them on her "thrilling, awesome and exiting" pinboard.

[JS_Harris]

Why? Because today I have a pretty image that shows up first in Google and brings me some visitors. When Pinterest steals it Google changes the link on MY pretty image to point through Pinterest first, and that's plain rude.

[bird]

It might be worth a try to adapt the methods explained in the "how to stop pinterest" thread:

Instead of blocking their bot, serve them a version of your image with a watermark, and an URL to your site "stamped" along the bottom. If you get the balance right (make those things noticeable but not overly intrusive), then you have the best of both worlds: Protection from reuse by people who don't realize where the image is from, and exposure for your site.

[chrisv1963]

Instead of blocking their bot, serve them a version of your image with a watermark, and an URL to your site "stamped" along the bottom

I serve them a huge colorful banner with the URL of my website :-)