Many blog and website owners love Pinterest for all the traffic it brings, but there's always the frustration when you see some of your content on someone's board that doesn't link back to your site. We stumbled upon our first one.
The Original Post:
Em's yarn balloon Level 5 Pinstrosity. This has been one of our most popular posts. I still get a chuckle when I read that post.
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| http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/02/bunch-of-hot-air.html |
I searched "Pinterest Fails" on Pinterest just a bit ago just for fun to see what people were finding and this one started popping up:
The Pinstrosity
It'd be great if all these pins linked back to our site, but of course none of them do. Instead every pin I clicked on (and I think I clicked on all of them I saw...that took a while) gave me the following message from Pinterest:
So I don't know what kind of site someone is trying to use our Pinstrosity to promote, but apparently it's not any good. Love that.
So, How to fix this Pinstrosity?...I guess we'll start making a watermark to put on our pictures...not that it will completely prevent this in the future, but maybe it'll help inhibit the action some. We knew we'd start doing a watermark sometime, but I didn't figure we'd have to for a while yet until we had more readers. Oh well.
What can you do to help fix this? Don't just pin blindly. I try and open every pin before I pin it, that way I know if the link works, if it goes back to the original source, and I can be sure I'm not unknowingly spreading a pin that links to someone's porn site they created (I heard that's happened...sick people). I didn't do this at first when I joined Pinterest because I just didn't know...so I'm getting through all my pins making sure they all are legit. Some haven't been and they've been deleted. Some of my pins didn't hit the origianl source but I was able to track it down and find the real post to link the pin to. Blog and website writers/owners put hard work into their content, help give them credit and pin responsibly (that sounds like a Don't Drink and Drive ad, I know).
I click on every single pin before I re-pin, just to make sure it links to what it says it is. There has been an inordinate amount of spam recently on Pinterest... drives me nuts!
ReplyDeleteThere has been a lot of spam! It's really frustrating.
Deletei saw a pin.. but the people didn't use balloons because it wasn't sturdy enough; instead they used those bouncy balls in the kid sections then once it was dry they just popped the balls and squeezed them out.. To me this didn't sound like a cheap craft so i haven't done it, but the balls make more sense than balloons.. In case you ever try that one!
ReplyDeleteHmmmm, I'd never thought of using those bouncy balls, that could be cool!
DeleteInstead of popping the balls, u deflate them and pull them out. That way u aren't spending a ton of money on lots of those balls. Leave a slot big enough at the top so when u deflate it, u just pull it out. Then hang it from the top
DeleteOh wow! I find it hilarious that your picture became part of a meme. Maybe you should just submit the picture to icanhascheezburger.com, because that gets a lot of traffic, and you have control over where it's linked back to!
ReplyDeleteI just went and did that, thanks Jess!
DeleteIt drives me nuts when I can't find the original source!
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this, I'm finding more an more pins without proper links. There was one that I had to go through 10 links to find the original source, and I swear I'm not exaggerating. I kept count. I'm sad to hear this site is a victim of it as you bring quite a bit of laughter into my day with the failed project.
ReplyDeleteThere's some code you can add to your blog that can make it so people can't pin your stuff....I'm not exactly sure where to find the needed code from, but I've seen it somewhere in the pinterest settings. I realize that will probably defeat you being able to pin your blog to your pinterest, but there's probably a way to edit the few lines of code given by pinterest to allow only select people to pin your stuff. I am by no means an excellent code writer, but in theory, it seems like something that would be fairly simple to do.
ReplyDeleteThat might be something to look into, thanks!
DeleteThis is what I made for pinners to hopefully repin as a work-around for the "unpinnable": http://pinterest.com/pin/149604018842210595/ I have been going through my boards each day one board at a time checking them, fixing the links by editing the URL. Note: some pins are not pinnable because Pinterest has found that the site could contain content harmful to your computer (ads, redirects, inappropriate content) but also the host site may have a bandwidth limitation, or maybe the host of the image doesn't allow it. I have one blog that allows it and another that doesn't, blog via Blogger, so it's weird. My peeve: pinned from the blog and not the blog post. It may have been on page 5 that day, but it's now on page 27.
ReplyDeleteThis drives me insane as well! I open everything before pining it because what's the point of pinning if you don't know anything about the photo or directions to make it? Many times, I try to find the original idea if a pin is from a post about a pin (does that make sense) and then I pin the original instead! A watermark is a must!
ReplyDeleteHey I saw this pin before my wedding and thought "hey! what a great and cost effective decoration". My first result ended up the same as yours, but I found through trial and error that by combining a better ratio of yarn and glue, and also using tacky craft glue and not regular elmers glue I got BEAUTIFUL decorations for my wedding. I even still have them hanging up in my house. They work, you just have to tweak it a bit.
ReplyDeleteThat is one of my biggest pet peeves on Pinterest! While I guess some people just pin for the pictures, I pin for the content and it's so frustrating when I click on something and nothing is there. Not only that, but I've clicked on a pin before that talked about a "great face mask" and when I clicked on it, the face mask they were talking about was a comment someone had left on a blog and the blogger said not to use what the commenter had suggested because it's bad for your skin! So crazy.
ReplyDeleteIt is also the way Pinterest handles linking websites. I used to be on blogspot and I went with my own domain recently. Instead of going through and changing the links because it would take forever, I just left my pins because of the amount of repins I had (I can't go around to my repins, now can I?). Since I know had hundreds of redirects, it marked my site as spam and none of my pins or repins worked. It made me look really bad, like a spammer. I got in touch with Pinterest and told them the situation. They said they are working on it for legit sites like mine but it's taking a while. That made me feel a little better as I thought people were marking me as spam.
ReplyDeleteI said all that to say this, just because that comes up as spam doesn't mean it is or was. It could be the way Pinterest has marked it and continues to do so. I have since relinked my pins coming from my crafting blog but what does Pinterest do with the ones someone has repinned from me before I fixed them?
I've run into the "inappropriate content" window many times before. I've never found porn, however I HAVE seen other sites similar to Pinterst on the other end. Not surprised they'd want to block a competitor. I've also found site that were link sites to other sites(of which have had some fantastic things that I found). when I find that kind of situation I navigate to the site that the item I want to pin is originally from and pin that.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that many people pin because of the photos and not for the site.
Not sure if you're wanting information on how to actually do the balloons, but here goes anyway. Instead of using glue, try Plaster of Paris. We used to make birdhouses using this method in VBS. Soak strips of newspaper (or yarn) in plaster mixture. Wrap like crazy around blown up balloon, leaving a hole on one side for birdhouse. Let dry. Spray paint balloon and decorate. Dry. Pop balloon. If it worked for a bunch of 6 - 10 year olds, it should work for us as adults. :)
ReplyDeleteI dd these for Easter and the colors weren't as bright but they came out well... They do take a good 24 hours to try and I sat and scraped out alley dried,excess, corn starch with a tooth pick- VERY time consuming- but... They turned out nicely!
ReplyDeleteHi, I've spent the last 3 days combing through your site and I have throughly enjoyed learning what not to do.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a way of adding an 'invisible' copyright tag in Photoshop that will travel with the photo as people copy & paste the pic to other sites. And anything tagged this way protects you under copyright acts. Here's a nice breakdown: http://craftgrrl.livejournal.com/11500187.html
Keep up the good (?) work :D
My friend and I made these for my wedding. I think I may have used a different pin but it had the same concept. I used Elmers glue, starch, and water mixture. We blew up balloons and wrapped the string around. I didn't put as much string on the balloons but they turned out wonderfully!! It did make a mess and I used a painters drop cloth so my kitchen table wasn't covered in the glue but they were beautiful!!
ReplyDelete