Fighting the Pinterest Algorithm

(Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Chaos Goblins)

Let’s talk about Pinterest.

Not the Pinterest you vaguely remember from 2012, when it was all wedding mood boards and mason jar crafts. I mean the current Pinterest… the one that’s somehow morphed into a visual search engine with the temperament of a cat that’s decided it hates you for reasons it will never explain.

I’ve spent more time than I care to admit trying to crack this thing. And the truth is, Pinterest doesn’t want to be cracked. It wants you confused, slightly desperate, and posting vertical images at 3am wondering if this will be the pin that finally goes viral.

Spoiler: it won’t be.

But that doesn’t mean the platform is completely useless. It just means you need to understand what you’re dealing with.

The fundamental problem with Pinterest

Pinterest operates on a very simple premise: it shows people things they didn’t know they were looking for, based on things they’ve already looked at, filtered through an algorithm that changes its mind more often than I change my socks.

It’s a search engine, but one where the searches are half-formed thoughts. “Dinner but make it autumnal.” “Outfit but interesting.” “Bathroom but not boring.” These are not Google searches. These are vibes with SEO potential.

And this is where most people go wrong. They treat Pinterest like Instagram… post something pretty, hope for the best, wonder why nobody cares. But Pinterest doesn’t reward pretty. It rewards useful pretty. Pretty with a purpose. Pretty that answers a question someone didn’t quite know how to ask.

What the algorithm actually wants (as far as anyone can tell)

Here’s what I’ve learned, through trial, error, and an unreasonable amount of spreadsheet tracking:

Fresh content is king, but also… not really?

Pinterest claims it loves fresh pins. New images, new designs, new everything. And it does. But it also loves evergreen content that keeps getting engagement months or years after you posted it. So you need to be constantly creating new stuff while also hoping your old stuff continues to perform. It’s like being told to run forwards and backwards simultaneously.

Consistency beats everything except quality, which also beats everything

The algorithm rewards people who show up regularly. Daily pinning is ideal. But if your daily pins are rubbish, you’re just consistently rubbish, which the algorithm will eventually notice and punish you for. So you need to be consistently good, which is exhausting.

I’ve found that pinning 5-10 times a day, every day, seems to keep the algorithm reasonably happy. More than that and you risk looking spammy. Less than that and you’re essentially invisible. It’s a Goldilocks situation, except the porridge temperature changes without warning.

Vertical or die

This isn’t negotiable. Pinterest is a mobile-first platform, and mobile screens are vertical. Your pins need to be 2:3 ratio… ideally 1000×1500 pixels. Horizontal pins get buried. Square pins get ignored. Vertical pins that are too vertical (looking at you, infographics that require scrolling within the pin itself) get skipped.

The sweet spot is tall enough to dominate the feed, short enough to see the whole thing without effort.

Text on images is secretly the most important thing

Here’s something nobody tells you: Pinterest’s visual search technology can read text in images. Which means the words you overlay on your pin aren’t just design elements… they’re SEO.

This is why those slightly ugly, text-heavy pins with bold fonts and contrasting backgrounds often outperform the minimalist aesthetic ones. Pinterest can read “Easy 30-Minute Chicken Recipes” in Comic Sans and rank it accordingly. It cannot read your beautifully subtle serif font on a low-contrast background, no matter how on-brand it is.

I know. It hurts. But you have to choose: do you want beautiful pins, or do you want pins that actually get seen?

(The correct answer is both, but that requires design skills I simply do not possess.)

The SEO nobody wants to do

Pinterest is a search engine, which means SEO matters. A lot. Possibly more than the image itself.

Your pin title needs keywords. Real, boring, specific keywords that people actually type into the search bar. “Autumn vibes” is nice. “Easy autumn dinner recipes for busy weeknights” gets found.

Your pin description needs to be at least 100 words (yes, really) and should read like a helpful human wrote it, while also being stuffed with searchable terms. It’s a balance between “useful information” and “keyword salad,” and getting it wrong in either direction tanks your performance.

Your board names matter too. “Things I Like” is not a board name. “Modern Minimalist Kitchen Ideas” is a board name. Be specific. Be searchable. Be boring if you have to.

And here’s the really annoying bit: you need to do this for every single pin. There are no shortcuts. Well, there are… they’re called scheduling tools and AI description generators… but the algorithm can often tell, and it doesn’t love that either.

The content types that actually work

Not all content is Pinterest content. I’ve seen people try to force their LinkedIn thought leadership posts onto Pinterest, and it’s like watching someone try to use a hammer as a spoon. Technically possible, but why would you?

Pinterest works best for:

Recipes (the platform’s bread and butter, pun intended)
DIY and craft tutorials
Home décor and interior design
Fashion and outfit inspiration
Infographics and educational content with clear visual steps
Anything with a strong before/after element

It works terribly for:

Long-form essays
Text-based content
Anything that requires nuance or context
Personal branding (unless you’re selling a visual lifestyle)
Hot takes and opinions

If your content doesn’t fit naturally into a vertical image format with a clear value proposition, Pinterest is going to be an uphill battle. And life’s too short for uphill battles with algorithms that don’t respect you.

The scheduling trap

Everyone tells you to use a scheduler. Tailwind, Pinterest’s own tool, whatever. And yes, scheduling helps with consistency. But here’s the thing nobody mentions: Pinterest’s algorithm gives slight preference to manual pinning.

Not enough to make scheduling pointless. Just enough to make you question everything.

I’ve tested this extensively (because I’m apparently that person now), and fresh pins uploaded manually seem to get a small initial boost compared to scheduled pins. Not huge. But noticeable. Enough to be annoying.

So the ideal strategy is: manually pin your most important new content, schedule the rest. Which means you can’t fully automate, but you also can’t spend all day manually pinning. It’s a compromise that satisfies nobody.

The brutal truth about growth

Here’s what nobody wants to hear: Pinterest growth is slow. Painfully slow. Unless you’re in a massively popular niche (recipes, home décor, weddings), you’re looking at months of consistent effort before you see meaningful traffic.

And even then, Pinterest traffic is… weird. It’s high volume but low engagement. People click through, grab what they need, and leave. They’re not there to build a relationship with you. They’re there to solve a problem or find inspiration, and you’re just the vehicle.

This makes Pinterest fantastic for certain business models (ads, affiliate links, product sales) and pretty rubbish for others (building an email list, creating community, establishing thought leadership).

You have to be honest about whether the type of traffic Pinterest provides is actually valuable for what you’re trying to do.

So… should you bother?

Depends.

If your content is naturally visual, if you’re in a Pinterest-friendly niche, if you have the capacity to create multiple pin designs for the same piece of content, if you can commit to consistent daily activity for at least six months… then yes, probably.

If you’re trying to force content that doesn’t want to be there, if you’re already stretched thin, if the thought of creating another vertical graphic makes you want to weep… then maybe your energy is better spent elsewhere.

Pinterest is not a magic traffic solution. It’s a long game that requires specific content types, consistent effort, and a willingness to play by rules that change without notice.

But if you do decide to fight the algorithm, at least now you know what you’re fighting.

And why it’s run by chaos goblins.