Although it makes sense (to a certain extent) why your IG bio link or even your Facebook post links don’t help your SEO – but, what about Pinterest? How does Pinterest, which considers itself to be both a search engine and a social media platform, influence your SEO? Do Pinterest backlinks help your SEO? Do they matter at all?

In short, yes, Pinterest backlinks do help your SEO. Pinterest backlinks help both indirectly by creating referral traffic and directly by giving you a do-follow backlink if your pin performs well by adding it to an “idea list” which started in May 2023.

For Pinterest to give you their high-quality backlink, you have to have a strong Pinterest strategy and thorough understanding of the platform. And while it creates a great opportunity for backlinks, it’s not the most effective nor efficient if your niche is not one that tends to perform well on the platform.

What Are Pinterest Backlinks? Do Pinterest Links Count for SEO?

Yes, your Pinterest links are backlinks. Backlinks are defined as one website linking back to another – which is exactly what your Pinterest pins do.

However, Pinterest backlinks are automatically marked as nofollow backlinks. When links are marked as nofollow, it’s alerting search engines to ignore the link – meaning you won’t get any boost to your domain authority or SERPs.

While nofollow backlinks still help your website’s SEO, they don’t provide the same help a do-follow backlink would. But, that doesn’t mean your backlink will forever be considered a “nofollow.”

Once your pin generates enough traffic on Pinterest and ranks “top 10” for a keyword, you can begin to generate do-follow backlinks. The backlinks DO improve your domain authority and directly impact your SERPs – and in a pretty impressive way too. I mean, Pinterest has a DA of 94 and a low spam score, which means their backlinks are pretty high-quality.

RELATED POST: How to Add SEO Backlinks to Your Website

How Do You Add Backlinks on Pinterest?

Pinterest backlinks are created by creating pins. You can create Pinterest pins in the form of Idea pins, carousel pins, static pins, and video pins. All of these pin types allow you to add a “destination link” or link back to your website.

Once you publish your pin, you’ve created a nofollow backlink. As you continue pinning and establishing your presence on Pinterest, you increase the possibility of ranking for a keyword on their platform. In turn, you are increasing your chances of generating a dofollow link from Pinterest.

Now, Pinterest requires time and consistency, so it may not be the most effective way to generate do-follow links for your business or blog.

How to Use Pinterest to Create Do-Follow Backlinks

There’s no guarantee that hopping on Pinterest is going to generate do-follow backlinks immediately – or ever. In fact, most users struggle to get their account going and generating traffic. Mostly, this is due to a lack of demand on the platform (it’s not for everyone) or a lack of research and strategy.

Pinterest keyword research and trend research can come in handy! Also, you may be playing a long-term game. Pins can last just as long as blog posts, so a pin or pins you create over the course of a few years can become popular and be your key to a do-follow link.

How Pinterest Can Improve Your SEO + 3 Real Life Examples

You’ll notice a common trend in these three examples listed below – mainly due to Pinterest only recently launching these idea list, causing an influx of do-follow backlinks for websites. Moving forward, it’s likely that you’ll only get do-follow links as the lists are released, rather than all at once.

Still, this provided great insight on how these new backlinks can effect your SEO. Some of the websites that experienced change only improved by a small amount, other’s DA scores jumped by almost 10 points.

Let’s take a look at the SEO changes a Pinterest backlink can make:

Example #1: Four Eyes Media

Four Eyes Media is a Wix website designer and specialist. With a strong following on Pinterest, it’s not unexpected to have a few ranking pins. Over the months of April 2023 to June 2023, she gained 11 new Pinterest do-follow inbound links (backlinks).

With no other major website changes and content changes – nor an increase or decrease in her ranking keywords, and no other backlinks acquired during this time period, we can attribute her growth to her new Pinterest backlinks.

At the beginning of April, prior to her backlink acquisition, her domain authority was an 11. By the end of May, her domain authority rose to a 16, and by June she landed at a 17.

As you can see above, she experienced pretty stagnant growth until May, when she acquired her Pinterest backlinks.

This will allow her to rank easier for certain keywords and generate more organic traffic through Google – and more referral traffic through Pinterest, amongst other things.

If you are not familiar with domain authority and why it’s important for SEO, I recommend reading our complete domain authority guides for SEO.

Example #2: Elizabeth McCravy

Elizabeth McCravy is a business mentor who specializes in growing small businesses and Showit website design. Elizabeth has a larger following and performance on Pinterest, so it’s not unusual for her to have more backlinks. Starting in May of 2023 until June of 2023, Elizabeth gained 22 do-follow backlinks from Pinterest.

These consisted of multiple top 10 lists from separate Pinterest domains. Each country of origin has a different Pinterest domain – allowing her to rank top 10 in different areas and get multiple backlinks for ranking.

At the beginning of April, her domain ranking was 26. By the end of May, her domain ranking rose 8 positions up to 33 and hit 35 by the end of June of 2023.

Unlike our first example, Elizabeth has seen some growth in her domain authority over the past year. While none as large as the jump from gaining multiple Pinterest backlinks, she has had consistent growth and improvement.

Although these Pinterest backlinks are not the only backlinks gained during the period of April – June of 2023, they do align with the highest jump in DA – proving a correlation in addition to the other two examples with the same DA jump and backlink acquisition.

Example #3: The Comma Mama Co.

Of course, as I check my website’s domain authority regularly, my own website was the first place I noticed the trend. Although my following is not as large on Pinterest, I have a few pins generating quite a bit of regular traffic to my website. Thanks to this, I happened to make it on a few “top 10” lists. From May 2023 to June 2023, I gained 9 new Pinterest backlinks.

Although I have been posting content regularly – around one per week – and I have gained a few new ranking keywords, no other changes have been made to my website. I did gain a few other backlinks, but none with a DA over 10, which would not influence my own DA as much as it did.

My website was not immediately influenced like the other two – in fact, my website only grew from May to June 2023. Originally a DA of 9 in April, my website grew to a DA of 10 in May and a DA of 16 in June of 2023.

My own domain authority has remained stagnant over the past year due to taking a break to give birth to my third child. As soon as I acquired the Pinterest backlinks, it gave my domain authority a good boost of 6 positions.

These backlinks will continue to allow me to rank and as I work on my Pinterest strategy, they will continue to influence my website’s SERPs.

How Will Pinterest Influence SEO?

Pinterest can now be an even more invaluable tool in your business’s marketing strategy. With the dual purpose of generating organic traffic and building your website’s backlinks for SEO, it may outweigh the benefits of marketing on other social media platforms.

With this change, you may see an adjustment in Pinterest ROI and how SEO’s continue to work. For example, pairing a Pinterest strategy with an SEO strategy might work best for your online marketing.

If you are interested in working with The Comma Mama Co. to get started with SEO and establishing your business online, book a FREE discovery call to see what’s best for you and your business.