Pinterest Pins don't have clickable links

[Liza]

Hello

I realise this isn't a new issue but I have noticed that a few of my pins don't have clickable links. I spend a lot of time promoting my items on pinterest and it is disheartening to see this, especially when it is a pin that has had a bit of engagement and there is no way for anybody to click through to my item and buy it!

I use tailwind to schedule most of my pins and occasionally I pin directly from Zazzle. The pins via tailwind are all created in the same way, so I don't think this is the issue as some of them work and some of them don't. If I share a collection from Zazzle directly to pinterest, these don't seem to have clickable links. Also when I scroll down the page on my Zazzle board and look at my older pins, NONE of them have clickable links!

Please can one of the moderators escalate this as this will be affecting sales and doesn't look good on pinterest. Here are links to examples:

Collection pinned directly from Zazzle that doesn't have a link:

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187277138/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187400342/

I've just found this collection that has been pinned directly from Zazzle and it does have a link so somebody can compare them:

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187416222/

Scheduled on tailwind and has no link:

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187410366/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187396056/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187407548/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187132082/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187418238/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180186501962/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12807180187398930/

Here is the link to my board:

https://uk.pinterest.com/simplyprettypieces/zazzle-invitations-%2B-stationery-for-all-events/

Regards

Liza

[Fiona]

I will pass this on 🙂 Thanks!

[Liza]

Thank you. Is Zazzle in discussions about this with Pinterest? It is obviously affecting a lot of people and Zazzle will be losing a lot of revenue because of this.

[klstock]

I had this happen too to some pins and was looking up this same issue the other day. I found this https://www.reddit.com/r/Pinterest/comments/1gqfu99/pinterest_removing_the_visit_button_from_pins/?r... 

If you look at about the 2nd comment down, they post an answer they got from Pinterest:

Thanks for sharing your perspective and working with me to figure this out. I checked the Pin that you shared based on the screenshot and we are running an experiment to remove the ‘Visit Button’ from Pins that lack a high-quality link. However, other users can still visit the link connected to your Pin by clicking the three dots and select Visit site.

That is so dumb! How would the customer know to do this?

[PAZP]

Thank you very much for sharing this. I noticed that when I clicked on the title of some of my posts it would not go to the link. I did all the usual clearing history and cookies but nothing worked. Very frustrating. 

AND now I read this. Possibly a reason my "linkover history" numbers have dropped considerably. 😑

[klstock]

You are welcome! The part that has me scratching my head in the Pinterest response I posted/linked to above is this:

I checked the Pin that you shared based on the screenshot and we are running an experiment to remove the ‘Visit Button’ from Pins that lack a high-quality link

Why are they deeming a link that goes to a Zazzle product or collection as lacking in quality?

All of my pins are manual pins. All my older pins link to my Zazzle product or collection directly. And they are pins that have had good engagement on products that have sold so why would Pinterest judge them to be lacking in quality? Not just for me, but for everyone else?

Most of my pins from the past few months link to my own website (and from there back to Zazzle). All of those pins work and have a clickable pin title. And my pins that link directly to Zazzle that no longer had a clickable title earlier in the week now seem to be working and are clickable again today. 

I don't know how long that had been happening where peoples' Pinterest pins seemed to be not clickable, but that had to have had an affect on Zazzle traffic. 

[PAZP]

It's very odd. All my pins are manual and are linked directly to a product, collection or group of products to one of my stores on Zazzle. I checked a number of them today. Nearly all have the hidden visit site option. A few were linked via the title. 

It doesn't appear to have been happening very long. I checked some from a month ago and they were fine. 

[PAZP]

I do all my work on a Mac so everything Zazzle is web based for me. Last evening I used my iPhone (iOS) to peruse Pinterest investigating whether this link issue was affecting pins there.  All my links worked and there were several options to open the link. That simple check seems to show me that it's a web based issue. I would love to know what others have found. 

[klstock]

Everything I do on Zazzle and Pinterest is on my computer also., and I never even use my phone to view Zazzle or Pinterest. As recent as a couple days ago, any pin that I had linked directly to Zazzle did not have clickable titles (also they did not work when using my kindle) but starting yesterday they did start to work like normal again (so far anyway). 

But you are using your computer and it is not working? But does work on your iPhone. 

I was just looking to see if I could find any other info and found this thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pinterest/comments/1gqfu99/pinterest_removing_the_visit_button_from_pins/?r...

In the above link, comments seem to imply that Pinterest is treating these pins as spam

And in this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Pinterest/comments/1f7nwzt/is_anyone_having_problems_lately_with_not_being/ the last comment as of the time I typed this says 

Something else to add after updating the Pinterest app. On mobile, I've noticed that if the pin is classed as "other person's pin" (for example, I originally posted that pin but the majority of the traffic/impressions have come from someone else repinning it, etc etc), then there is no "visit site" button. However, if the pin is classed as "your pin", then the "visit site" button is present.

Not sure what all this means but some of these comments about not having clickable pin titles go back at least 2 months. Have Zazzle or designers noticed a drop in views/sales in the last couple months? If Pinterest was making thousands of pins linking to Zazzle not clickable which seems to be the case, that means they directly and negatively affected peoples' sales and I see a million "sales down" threads. Might be some correlation there.

[PAZP]

It has definitely affected my "linkover history" which in turn would affect sales. November 15th is the last time my linkover numbers were steadily in low triple digits. Since then I've had them as low as 20. Yesterday after perusing Pinterest on web and phone the linkovers show they went into triple digits, I'm sure because of my looking around. 

[ColsCreations]

I was browsing the Pinterest app on my phone a few weeks ago and ran into some pins with no link but that were supposed to go to Zazzle. It's only chance that I stumbled on the ••• menu which has a "visit site" text link in it.  But at that time, it was only happening with video pins, and only from the Pinterest app from my phone (Android).

Looking at my own Z board today from my laptop, I can't find any pins (mine are all manually created)  without a link, old or new. However browsing around, I found plenty from various designers, some leading to Zazzle, some leading to Etsy or eBay. What they had in common was they were all on the same popular group board that has over 3k members and 300k pins. So perhaps the type and "quality" of the board pinned to is a factor here, too.

[klstock]

Interesting, I don't know what that group board is and don't belong to any anymore and haven't posted to any. But until yesterday, many of my pins that linked directly to my Zazzle product or collection didn't have a clickable title and I don't know how long that had been the case. I found a thread that mentioned clicking on the 3 dots to visit the site but I would not have thought to do that and most customers probably would not think to either so I wonder how much traffic was lost because of this? 

I still have sales because I have also been linking to my own website but I would think pinterest messing around with pins that way would have caused some loss of traffic and revenue to designers and Zazzle. 

[GabrielaG]

It's the same here. All my manually created pins do not show the "visit site" option and are not clickable when I access Pinterest through my computer, but they work when I access them using my iPhone.

[SaraO]

This happened to me, I did post on here about it a while ago. However the clickable links reappeared back. It's all very strange!!

[Elizavella]

same here not only my Pinterest links but also some of my other listings as well!

[Harmony]

I definitely have no links for anything previously using the Zazzle pin button

however it may be a moot point as any referrals links still continue to disappear once you get to the 'view product details' page