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My Pinterest Account Was Suspended (or Blocked)! What Should I Do?

How to avoid being suspended and to appeal a suspension.

If you’re ever in the unfortunate position where you have logged in to Pinterest to see a suspension notice, then read on.

Like any other social network or search engine, Pinterest wants its platform to be a safe and enjoyable place for its users.

However, Pinterest will take appropriate action on any account that they deem is likely to be harmful to their community.

This typically happens automatically, although they do have people manually review accounts. Users can also report content on Pinterest that they find breaks their rules. 

Pinterest works very hard at making sure that disturbing or unsafe content is not shared on its platform.

Accounts can be suspended due to violations for many reasons which are outlined in the Pinterest Community Guidelines.

These include:

  • Copyright or intellectual property theft
  • Using hateful speech, inappropriate images
  • Spam
  • Account Security, impersonation or third-party logins

If you have been suspended from Pinterest, then not only will you see a suspension notice when you try to log in to Pinterest, but you should also receive an email notification.

Appealing an account suspension

It is possible to appeal an account suspension, but only if you feel that your account shouldn’t have been suspended. If you have violated one of their policies, then the likelihood of your account being reactivated is very unlikely. 

To appeal the suspension, you should get in touch with Pinterest here providing as much detail as possible.

Shortly after you will receive an automated email from Pinterest. This will include some general guidance and will ask you to check their community guidelines.

If you have checked the Pinterest Community Guidelines and believe that you haven’t broken any of their policies, then you should reply to this email. You should state that the information hasn’t been helpful and that you still believe that you have not broken their policies.

This will then refer your case to a real human being who will look into your suspension and hopefully deal with the issue.

Please be patient while they deal with your case, and they will get back to you with their decision.

Pinterest Jail – How to avoid getting suspended on Pinterest

Pinterest Jail is a term that bloggers use who referring to those who have had their Pinterest account suspended.

It is important to follow the Pinterest Community Guidelines – read them, re-read them, even research them. You need to be clear about what things can impact your account.

Apart from the obvious activities that would result in suspension such as posting adult content, or using hateful speech, the most likely way that your account would be suspended would be down to spammy practices.

If you find that you’ve been suspended from Pinterest, then you need to be aware that it can take anything from a couple of days to a couple of months to get your account reactivated.

The problem is, you may not even be aware that you’re spamming. What’s more, you might not even be spamming at all, and it could be a mistake on their system.  

If you follow any Pinterest group boards, you need to be aware of the board rules which you should find in the board description. Some boards may only allow you to post to the board once a day.

These are some of the things we have seen happen to people. So it’s important that you take necessary precautions to minimize the risk of this happening or it could significantly affect the growth of your business.

How to avoid spamming Pinterest

Bear in mind is that if you value your business, and also value the traffic that Pinterest provides you with each month, then you must avoid doing anything spammy on Pinterest.

But what is considered spam?

Spammy behavior on Pinterest can be due to one of the following types of actions:

  • Stealing / Hijacking Pins
  • Unnatural usage – high volume activities
  • Saving pins that link to unrelated content
  • Saving disallowed content
  • Repetitive Pinning
Stealing / Hijacking Pins

Pin stealing is quite common on Pinterest. It may even happen to your pins at some point. Many of the pins you click on will take you to a website that relates to that pin. 

For example, a pin about starting a blog will take you to the page of the same topic. The original pin is likely to have come from the author of the blog post and will be well designed and optimized for Pinterest SEO. This means it is likely to get a lot of repins and engagement.

However, unscrupulous people often hijack these pins. They relink them to content that is different from the original link, such as spammy websites or adult sites.

Not only is this affecting the original content author who has worked hard at creating the content and marketing the pin, but it negatively affects those who use Pinterest who want to have an enjoyable and valuable experience.

Therefore Pinterest works hard at removing these pins and will suspend any accounts that have participated in this type of activity.

Users of the Pinterest mobile app will see a message when they click links on pins, asking them, “Did you find what you were looking for” with a yes and no button. This makes it easy for users to report content that does not relate to the content of the pin.

Even if you haven’t purposely hijacked the link, you might still be participating if you are repinning this content. This means it is important to check the links before you repin so that you are taking precautions to avoid being suspended. Ideally, you want to click the link, visit the website and decide if it is worth pinning.

What to do if someone has stolen your pins

If you find that someone has stolen your pins, then you must report it. You can do this by clicking your pin for a close-up, clicking the three dots, and choosing the type of report you want to make.

You can also do this if you ever come across a pin that has stolen one of your images. Choose the My Intellectual Property option when reporting the pin.

If you have many pins, it might be easier to find if any of your pins have been stolen by analyzing any data. You can do this by using your Pinterest Analytics clicks vs. Google Analytics Pinterest Pins reports over the same date range. Should the clicks not relate, then this can be a sign that one or more of your pins have been hijacked. You’ll need to look into things more closely.

Remember to make sure to add your logo onto the pin image. This will make it easier for people to report the pin and will make it easier to prove that the pin should be linking to your website.

Tailwind has a great article on how to report stolen pins and how to avoid accidentally removing all of the pins.

Unnatural usage – high volume activities

Pinterest has automatic blocking features for accounts that show high volume repetitive activities such as:

  • Frequent logins in a short period
  • Posting on a lot of comments in a short time or repeat comments
  • Unnaturally following a lot of other Pinterest users in a short time
  • Saving multiple pins from the same website quickly
  • Using link shortening or redirection tools – This can get you suspended

If you do get blocked for doing any of these activities, then it’s likely to be only temporary, from 30 minutes to 24 hours. But take it as a warning that you’re account may be suspended if you continue to use Pinterest unnaturally.

Repetitive Pinning

Whenever you create new content, you’ll pin new content to any relevant boards. But rather than pinning the same pin over and over to the same boards, pin to new relevant boards instead. 

The same pin means the same image, same description, and link. 

When you want to pin the same content to give it a boost, then simply create a new image to pin to your relevant boards. Also, include new descriptions that relate to the content with Pinterest keywords.

You don’t need to remove old pins, and the great thing is you can use several different images that relate to the same content. These older pins will resurface over time.

Just refresh your content with new images and descriptions regularly to keep consistency, and you’ll see great results.

Saving disallowed content

When sharing content with Pinterest, it is important only to pin content that is safe for its users. Pinterest is used by people all over the world, including children. So only pin content that is safe and appropriate for the general audience.

Avoid anything questionable, obvious content that you shouldn’t share. Simply look at the community guidelines so that you are clear on what you should be sharing.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you can successfully appeal your suspension on Pinterest and learn from your mistakes. Bear in mind what we have told you here about bad behavior on Pinterest and for more details on Pinterest best and worst practices then check out this guide.

Pinterest really is such a powerful platform to promote your blog or business on and it would be a real shame to be suspended from, that’s why we are always here to help educate our readers.

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