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Deconstructing Pinterest’s reverse-image-search SEO growth hack

rankscience.com

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Re: Deconstructing Pinterest’s reverse-image-search SEO growth hack

#4

Post by ryanb »

smcameron wrote: post #3

Back when I was an SRE at google for their web crawler, I thought they should de-index pinterest (did not get any traction with this). I still think they should de-index pinterest. I add "-site:pinterest.*" to all my image searches.

Super interesting. A lot of people feel the same way. Why do you think you weren't able to get any traction for this?

Re: Deconstructing Pinterest’s reverse-image-search SEO growth hack

#5

Post by sp332 »

smcameron wrote: post #3

Back when I was an SRE at google for their web crawler, I thought they should de-index pinterest (did not get any traction with this). I still think they should de-index pinterest. I add "-site:pinterest.*" to all my image searches.

This is much more difficult with Bing than it should be. I have to add a bunch of separate pinterest.* domains.

Re: Deconstructing Pinterest’s reverse-image-search SEO growth hack

#6

Post by whywhywhywhy »

smcameron wrote: post #3

Back when I was an SRE at google for their web crawler, I thought they should de-index pinterest (did not get any traction with this). I still think they should de-index pinterest. I add "-site:pinterest.*" to all my image searches.

You would have made my week if you have managed to convince them to do that. At the worst point Pintrest's spamming of Google Image Search pretty much rendered the service next to useless.

It wasn't a "growth hack" it was spam, plain and simple.

Re: Deconstructing Pinterest’s reverse-image-search SEO growth hack

#7

Post by andreygrehov »

ryanb wrote: post #2

Hey folks, I'm the author here and CEO of RankScience (YC W17). AMA about this growth hack or SEO in general!

I've got something I've always been curious about. If the website was penalized by Google, is it possible to rank _after_ the penalty is lifted?

Edit: the story behind this question. A friend of mine has a local business. He once paid an SEO agency to do optimizations for his website. After a while, the website was penalized because of some shady stuff the agency did (paid links?). The penalty is long gone, but it looks like Google never forgets anything, so the website is sitting there on 5+ pages for pretty much any keyword.

Re: Deconstructing Pinterest’s reverse-image-search SEO growth hack

#9

Post by ryanb »

andreygrehov wrote: post #7
ryanb wrote: post #2

Hey folks, I'm the author here and CEO of RankScience (YC W17). AMA about this growth hack or SEO in general!

I've got something I've always been curious about. If the website was penalized by Google, is it possible to rank _after_ the penalty is lifted? Edit: the story behind this question. A friend of mine has a local business. He once paid an SEO agency to do optimizations for his website. After a while, the website was penalized because of some shady stuff the agency did (paid links?). The penalty is long gone, but it lo…

Yep, this is called a "manual action" by Google, and they'll often tell you exactly what you're doing that they find offensive. Usually this involves buying spammy backlinks. You can resolve the issue and ask them to re-evaluate your site by submitting a Reconsideration request.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9044175?hl=en

Re: Deconstructing Pinterest’s reverse-image-search SEO growth hack

#10

Post by blinding-streak »

There are certain sites like Wikipedia that improve the web's utility for all who use it, small and giant companies alike. Google search is improved by Wikipedia's existence.

And then there are sites like Pinterest, that degrade the web's utility for the vast majority of people on Earth. It actually harms Google's search experience (obviously image search) and frustrates us that try to benignly browse images. Why does Google let Pinterest get away with its user-hostile approach?

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