What to Do If Someone Steals Your Pinterest Pin!

Hey you,

In case you don’t know me, I’m Angela -an Illustrator and Blogger who loves teaching people how to make money at home doing what they love. 

I’ve helped loads of bakers, photographers, book bloggers, cooks get from $0 a month to a full-time income with my posts/coaching.

Of late, I’ve been using Pinterest to get most of my blog traffic to all my websites.

I’m doing a Pinterest Series where I discuss a few strategies weekly.

If you’d like to learn more about Pinterest, just sign up for my newsletter by getting these free templates. You’ll get an email whenever I release a new Pinterest hack.

In this post, I’ll quickly cover what to do if someone steals your pin. And I’ll then go on to:

• Why & how do people steal other pins?
• How to find your pins (that have been stolen)?
• What you can do to prevent your pins from being outright stolen?

Please note: My posts are long, but this is only because I want to make everything super easy for you to understand. 

This post may include affiliate links, which means clicking on them might result in me making a commission at no extra cost to you. This allows me to run this blog ad-free and make content accessible for you for free. I also use this to pamper my beloved pups.

What is a stolen pin?

A stolen pin is when a copycat/spammer takes a screenshot of your pin and then pins it directly to Pinterest to link to their own website.

So basically, all that hard work you put into designing your pins goes to waste.

The bad news is, that when anyone enters a keyword (that technically targets your pin), their pin which they stole from you may pop up first.

This sucks because not only is your pin being overshadowed, but it’s now linking to their crummy website – and this is bad for your brand authority.

They are quite literally stealing your blog traffic.

So, if you’re facing this, here’s what to do.

What to do if someone steals your pin?

Step 1: Go to the pin

Click the pin that’s yours. Open it.

Step 2: Click on the 3 dots and Report it

Next to the pin, right on the top, you’ll see 3 dots. Click on it.

Select “Report pin.”

Step 3: Choose the reason

Since people duplicate the entire pin, I usually select “My Intellectual Property.”

Then click on “Next.”

And select, “This infringes my copyright.”

Step 4: Fill the form

You will get a huge form. Fill it in.

Yes, it takes time, but it’s important to do this.

Please note:

• Remember to select “Strike all” and not “Remove all.” Removing all will remove even your copy of the pin.
• Your pin needn’t be in the blog post if the URL is mentioned on the pin image. If not, then add the pin to the blog post and copy-paste that URL into the form.
• Please check whether your pin was pinned to a spammy site or if it’s a user who accidentally repined the pin from the robber’s pin.
• Make sure that it’s not a good blogger who just did a casual roundup and featured your image.

Usually, the pin will get taken down within 24 hours, I have always succeeded in taking down my stolen pins.

Now, the bigger question.

Why do people steal other people’s pins and how do they do it?

People want blog traffic quickly.

And they want it without figuring out what works.

So, they use tools like PinClicks (it’s amazing but in the wrong hands, it could be used to do a lot of damage) and find viral pins.

They then screenshot the viral pin – use AI to write a quick blog post and pin the viral pin screenshot linking to their post.

Some of them go a step further and resize the pin (they’ll add a colored border to the pin), this will make it difficult for Pinterest to track down the copies of the pin because it’s been modified in some way.

It’s a crappy situation to be in when your pin is stolen, but unfortunately, you need to spend some time doing this if traffic is important to you.

How to find stolen pins?

Because most of these spammers steal viral pins, it’s better to check your viral pins and see if there are stolen copies on Pinterest.

How do you do that?

Step 1: Just go to Analytics Overview > Top Pins

You’ll have to scroll down in Analytics Overview to find it.

Step 2: Search for copies

Now click on each pin and click on the “magnifying glass” at the bottom-left corner of the pin.

Step 3: Select the entire image and search

The Image Search will open up now.

Make sure the entire image is selected, and not just a small section.

It will search for the same pin. Please remember sometimes other users pin the image.

Just check if it’s going to your website. If it is, don’t bother.

Only look for pins that have no URL or go to another website!

How to prevent people from copying your pins?

1. Add a watermark/URL to your pins

This is the first step to making it difficult for people to steal your pin.

If the pin is VERY valuable, I’ll place my URL somewhere in the middle, so people can’t crop it out.

Just by adding your URL, you’re helping users realize that your pin is YOURS.

So, even if someone sees your stolen pin, they’ll realize that it’s going to some other URL and search for your website instead.

It also helps Pinterest identify your pin if you report it stolen.

2. Use a lot of keywords in your description

Write detailed, keyword-rich descriptions for each pin.

When people search for those keywords, your original pin is more likely to appear at the top, even if someone else has re-uploaded the image.

I explain how to do keyword research in this post. 

3. Report stolen pins immediately!

If you notice your pins are stolen and reposted frequently, keep an eye on Pinterest for unauthorized copies and report them.

By doing this, regular offenders will be wary of your pins and not steal them.

4. Use a pin it button on your website

When anyone hovers over your images in your blog post, a “Pin It” button should appear.

You can just look for a free WordPress plugin to do this. But now, most WordPress themes come with this option by default.

This helps people pin your images easily – and ensures that when users pin your content, it links back to your blog automatically.

Despite all of this, it’s still not going to stop serial copycats from stealing your pins.

The only thing you can do is make it difficult for them to steal your pin so that they get irritated and move on to someone else.

Let me know if you have any questions – I’m more than happy to help!

If you’d like to read more, do so here!

• 9 Pin Design Mistakes that Are Costing You Clicks!
• How to do Pinterest Keyword Research and skyrocket your blog traffic
• How I Created a Viral Pin (Easily)

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my Pinterest newsletter (where I send you more hacks) by getting these free Pinterest templates: