The pitfalls of Pinterest
These days many new businesses look at social media as the main platform and key source of their marketing rewards. Such is their popularity and perception of value that many companies completely discount search (organic or paid) from their marketing mix.
So everyone is rushing to book names (social handles) and start posting messages with a view to promoting products and services. And whilst all this is a humble effort at social promotion, at the same time something far more sinister is taking place.
‘About us’ information, images and links are shared with vigour on social media whilst websites start producing their first original content. Original until it is pasted on social networks. Once this action has taken place, websites are devalued in Google and lose out on the most profitable form of traffic, organic search.
The Worst Offenders
Pinterest
All social networks do some form of “content stealing” but Pinterest and Facebook currently top the list, also because of their popularity and prominence. Pinterest originally posted images that linked back to their respective sites. More recently though, the site also includes a description which is taken from the website the image was sourced from. Pinterest does this by pulling data from your page via the link you provide it with.
Why this is a problem? Pinterest is a highly authoritative and powerful site. It therefore ranks well for the content it contains. But Pinterest by itself does not produce content, it features millions of pieces of content from other sites.
Google when ranking pages, always prefers highly authoritative sites, so when it has to choose between your brand new baby (hedge fund or not) business website and a respectable and powerful social media network, guess who gets the nod?
What? But the content is yours? You wrote it? Late at night after the kids went to bed? It does not matter. The Google algorithm has no way of recognising the original content holder and therefore makes the next best choice it can. It’s not good, but it is what it is.
So next time you post a picture on Pinterest or a link on Facebook for your relatively new business, think again. Are you promoting your business or ruining your chances of good future rankings on Google?
