Last updated on July 22nd, 2018 at 06:10 am
As you know, I have been learning how to use Pinterest to grow my blog. I’ve invested in courses, read blogs and read books to learn how to use it. Today, I wanted to show you how to remove pins from Pinterest that have been hijacked from other users.
If you’ve read my blogging mistakes from the past, you know that this isn’t my first blog. In fact, it’s not even my second blog.
I’ve started my entrepreneurial journey several years ago. The difference with this blog and all my others in this blog I am doing it the right way.
As you know, I am currently working as a WordPress freelancer and started this blog to move away from freelancing.
My goal is to turn this blog into a full-time income through passive income such as affiliate marketing, ads, and other monetization means.
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Growing A Blog Is New
If you’ve been following me, you know that growing this blog is completely new. I’ve never grown a blog before and don’t even get me started on social media.
When I started it, I had no clue what I was doing. (sometimes I still feel like that)
Yet I didn’t let that stop me. I dove in and started learning. I purchased courses, read and did whatever I needed to do to use it effectively.
Focusing On Pinterest
If you’ve read my October blog growth report, then you know that Pinterest is my biggest traffic referral. If you’re ready to learn how to start a profitable blog, then be sure to check out the tutorials and advice on this blog.
That’s because I’ve actually been learning the ins and outs. I even purchased the PIMP product by Jennifer Pot Pie Girl.
You can pick it up here.
This product has shown me new things that I didn’t even know about Pinterest. I am always trying to learn how to use it effectively since it’s the social media platform I am focused on, I need to keep learning as much as I can about it.
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I spend my time and money on courses to learn. There’s nothing wrong with spending money on courses or products as long as they teach you something new and you actually use it.
So why am I writing a post on how to remove pins from Pinterest when we’re trying to grow our account?
Well because last week I realized that someone had hijacked one of my pins.
What Upsets Me The Most
Last week, I was in my Pinterest account working and doing my daily Pinterest tasks. I clicked on the notifications and saw a pin of mine had been repinned.
So I clicked over to inspect the pin and guess what?
I saw that someone had stolen my pin!
It was my pin but the pin redirected to someone else’s site. Yes, I hate to say it Pin theft is real.
I ended up having to file a Pinterest DMCA complaint to have that specific pin removed. If you’re like me, you work your ass off learning and doing things the right way.
The last thing you want is someone stealing your pins. Unfortunately, whenever you put something online, you open yourself up to someone stealing your content.
Which sucks because we know how hard it is to grow a blog. Maybe you’re working hard on your blog to create a better lifestyle for you and your loved ones?
Or maybe you’re trying to get to a full-time income so you can leave your day job? Regardless of why you’ve started a blog.
It’s hard work and you’re busting your butt trying to grow.
So I thought that I would share the exact steps I took to get Pinterest to remove the stolen pin.
How To Remove Pins From Pinterest
While I don’t remove a lot of images from Pinterest. I know that some people say that you should delete pins to improve your account. I haven’t personally done that, so I don’t have any experience.
Sara Titus has a great article that will help you understand if you should delete pins on Pinterest.
This was the first time that I’ve ever filed a DMCA request to Pinterest.
Unfortunately, pin theft is real. If you’re on Pinterest, you may eventually experience this and hopefully, this step-by-step tutorial will walk you through on what to do.
This is my personal experience and I can definitely tell you that Pinterest makes it easy to report a pin.
Let’s get started…
How I Found The Stolen Pin
Before I walk you through the process of how to remove pins from Pinterest. I wanted to show you how I found out about the stolen pin. People in the Facebook group were asking me how I knew the pin had been stolen.
As I mentioned above, I got a notification on Pinterest.
Check Your Pinterest Notifications
Whenever someone pins a pin of yours depending on the stage of the pin. Yes, every pin has a different stage and the PIMP product will explain this in detail.
I always make it a point to check my notifications. You can find your Pinterest notifications as soon as you log into your account.
You’ll see the pins that people have shared on your boards. Those pins can be yours or other people’s pins.
Make sure that you’re checking those notifications on a regular basis.
What I Found
I always check the pins that people are sharing from my boards, especially if they are my pins. When I clicked over to the pin, this is what I saw.
As you can see, it’s my image but someone had redirected it to their own site. I’ve blurred out the information to the person who stole the pin.
I don’t want to reveal the person who stole the pin. I’m just trying to show you what you might experience if someone steals your pin.
Report A Pin On Pinterest
When you run into a pin that someone has redirected to their own site, the first thing you want to do is submit a copyright complaint on Pinterest.
You have the option of emailing them or filling out the online form. I personally filled out the online form.
I’ll be walking you through the entire process of what I did. Remember, this is my experience and I can say that I had a good one.
Required Info For Reporting A Pin
I thought I would share with you the required information to report a pin on Pinterest. It’s pretty easy, but I’ll show you what I did.
You’ll be asked to fill out your personal information. I’m not sure if you need to fill everything out, I did.
Identify Your Work
You’ll be asked to identify what’s been stolen. Most likely it’ll be an image, but you’ll also get to choose from:
- Text or quote
- Video
- Audio in a video
- A recipe or instructions
- My name
- A design or Artwork
- An object I own
- Other
Once you make your choice, you’ll need to prove that it belongs to you.
How to Prove It’s Your Work
Chances are the pin is on your website. (hopefully, it is) Enter the link to the post where they can see the pin on your site.
I was lucky enough to have the exact pin on my blog. Plus the image had my watermarked logo on it.
Identify The Material You Want to be Removed
Enter the URL of the stolen pin. You’ll have the option to enter up to 100.
You’ll notice that there are two options under this. I was totally confused on what to check.
After spending some time reading, I realized that if I checked “Remove All” I would be asking Pinterest to remove all instances of that pin. Regardless of whether they are yours or not. (I’m not really sure if that’s what will happen, but I didn’t want to risk it so I left that blank)
You don’t want all your pins removed. All you want to do is remove that one specific pin that has been stolen.
So be sure that you don’t check “remove all.”
Confirm Your Information
You’ll need to check all 3 boxes to confirm that the information is accurate before you can submit the form.
Sign The Form
The final step is to sign the form. Your signature will act as an electronic signature. Then click on submit once everything has been filled out.
If everything was filled out correctly, you’ll get a confirmation number.
Now you can go on your merry way and work on other things to grow your blog.
Remember, you don’t want all your traffic coming from Pinterest, so be sure that you focus on other blogging tasks.
How Long Does It Take Pinterest to Get Back With You?
Another question I got from the Facebook group was how long does it take for Pinterest to remove the pin?
My personal experience was excellent. I filled out the DMCA complaint form around 10:30 AM. I remember it because I was actually getting ready to go for my 3-mile walk.
It was about 5.5 hours when I received the email from Pinterest saying that the pin had been removed.
Overall, the process is very easy. Of course, it’s a waste of time because as bloggers there are always other things that we can be working on.
The last thing we want to spend time on is dealing with people who steal pins.
How to Protect Your Pins
As I mentioned pin theft is real. However, there are a couple things that you can do to protect yourself.
Use Watermarks
If you notice my pin above, I have my blog URL on it. However, this didn’t stop the person from removing my link and redirecting the pin to their blog.
So it doesn’t really keep people from stealing your pins. But it will make it easier if you need to file a DMCA complaint because you can easily prove it’s your pin.
Use Your Pins On Your Blog
If you have to file a complaint with Pinterest, they’ll want to see the pin on your blog. It’ll be much easier if you can point them to your blog so they can see the pin.
I personally use the Social Warfare plugin which makes it easy for me to add my Pinterest images to my blog.
Don’t Let This Stop You
No one wants their hard work stolen. If you’re like me, chances are you pay for your images. I buy my images from Creative Market and Deposit Photos.
The last thing we want is someone stealing our pins. This could literally stop you from wanting to useΒ Pinterest.
Don’t let this scare you from using Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog. It does take time to learn and you may have to deal with this, but it’s totally worth it. It’s become one of my biggest traffic referrals.
I couldn’t imagine using Pinterest without the help of Tailwind.
Get Your Traffic From Other Places
You don’t want to spread yourself too thin by trying to be everywhere. However, you don’t want all your traffic coming from Pinterest. Create blogging tasks that will help you grow your blog but don’t require you to be everywhere.
As you know Pinterest is a social search engine. If something changes and all your traffic is coming from that one source, you’ll literally lose all your traffic overnight.
I’ve been there before when I focused 100% on SEO. Let me tell you, it isn’t fun when you work so hard to build something.
Then your traffic disappears overnight. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Final Take Away
This post wasn’t meant to discourage you and make you scared to get on Pinterest. The truth is that 98% of people who repin your pins are doing it correctly. Maybe 2% are actually stealing pins. (that’s just my personal experience NOT proven stats)
Most bloggers are trying to grow their blogs the right way. If you haven’t started your blog or just want to learn more, be sure to stop by and visit my page on how to start a blog tips for beginners.
You’ll find tons of helpful articles to get your blog going. You’ll even be able to learn the basics of WordPress to help you manage your blog.
You can’t focus on the negative. Focus on growing your blog and where you want to go. Take the necessary daily action and eventually, your blog will grow into something that you can be proud of.
Hand Picked Articles for You
- How to Confirm Your WordPress Blog In Pinterest With Yoast SEO
- How to Post On Pinterest Using Social Warfare
- Steal My Pinterest Image Creation System
Hopefully, your pins aren’t being stolen, but if you do find one, hopefully, this tutorial will show you report it learn how to remove pins from Pinterest the right way π
Have a question or comment? Want to share your Pinterest experience? Please leave it in the comment below! You can also email me at susan(at)susanvelez(dot)com and Iβll do my best to help.
Hey Susan,
Though I am not using Pinterest still, it’s always good to know what can be done on this platform.
Your step by step tutorial can help the people who want to delete their pins. I always wonder why do people steal.
This is something every platform is facing.
Glad to know we have a solution.
~Ravi
Hi Ravi,
Yeah, it still amazes me that so many people are trying to find take the shortcut to success by stealing. I was totally surprised when I saw that my pin had been redirected to someone else’s blog.
The funny thing is that he used my image with my URL still on the pin. I didn’t know that it was a problem on the other social media platforms as well.
Unfortunately, that’s one of the things that we have to deal with whenever we start publishing content online.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment. Hopefully, my tutorial will help someone if they find themselves dealing with stolen pins.
Have a great day π
Susan
Thank you for sharing this. I haven’t run into this issue yet, but if I do I’ll now be prepared to handle it.
Hi Leah,
I hope you NEVER have to deal with it. Let me tell you it sucks, when you see someone stealing your pins.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day π
Susan
Hey Susan!
Yes this is a real problem. Had he featured your article at all or just plain old stolen the pin?
I have a real problem of accidentally pinning stolen pins. Of course, as soon as I notice it or someone asks it to be removed, it’s removed right away. That’s one of the downsides of using auto pinning features on Board Booster.
I make sure to have a monitoring session and if I notice stolen pins I report them.
Claire
Hi Claire,
No he flat out stole the pin and redirected it to his own blog post. So when someone clicked over to the article, it led them straight to his blog.
It’s the first pin that I’ve noticed of mine that was hijacked. I only noticed it when I happened to check my notifications.
Glad to hear that you actually take the time to report them. I’ll be sure to do that if I notice any stolen pins.
It sucks that people stoop so low to steal other people’s hard work.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Hope you have a great day π
Susan
Hi Susan,
So sorry this happened to you but you sure know how to fix it! I am not a current Pinterest user, and this problem is exactly why. I have used Pinterest years back, and a few people had stolen my pins and done just what this guy did to you.
Maybe back then there was no way to reconcile, but it made me loose interest in Pinning because I had to police it.
Now that you have explained that there IS something we can do about it, you have sparked my interest once again on this platform.
Thank you sooooo much!
-Donna
Hi Donna,
Yeah, it does kind of suck that people do that. While I make it a point not to check all the time, I just happened to run across this one pin.
It didn’t take too long to get this particular pin deleted. But I did have to waste time contacting Pinterest and dealing with the issue.
If people would just run their blogs the right way and not steal pins, that’d be awesome. Unfortunately, there’s always going to be someone who is trying to take the easy road to success.
Glad to hear that you might be giving Pinterest another shot.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day π
Susan
Hello Susan,
Great tips over here π
Thanks for making us aware of this threat, indeed when in online business, the fear for getting theft is always there
on our minds. What if some one stole our pins, our post our images. This really hurts a lot, as we have worked upon that
particular matter and when we see some other one with that kind of stuff then it surely hurts.
Great tips over here on how to remove a stolen pin from pinterest, your steps by step tutorials are helping things out
over my head.
Sorry this happen with you, but these incidents makes us prepared for the future and glad you know the way to fix this
down.
Thanks for the share.
Shantanu.
Hi Shantanu,
You’re right, it does suck when someone steals our stuff. As bloggers we know how much work we put into growing our blogs.
The last thing we want is someone coming along and stealing it.
If you’re on Pinterest, I hope you never have to deal with it.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day my friend π
Susan
Hey Susan,
Thanks for sharing some important information with us… I don’t use pinterest so much, just heard about that. it’s really disappointing how can someone stole our pins, I do know a little about watermark., adding a watermark to your images is a good way to make sure those who see it and know that the image belongs to you. We can easily create it on Photoshop.
Your tips are very effective. very sorry, this happened to you. and thank you for making us awake of this.
Maria
Hi Maria,
I’m surprised that you’re not using Pinterest. Which social media platform are you focused on?
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Hope you have a great day π
Susan
These days I’m using twitter alot, and good thing is that, I got good result. I’m very inspired from Lisa’s post on inspiretothrive.
I also use pinterest but not so much.
Yeah, Lisa shares some great tips on how to use Twitter. I’ll probably focus on Twitter once I get more familiar with Pinterest.
Personally, I’ve found that I can only focus on one platform at a time. Especially, if I really want to learn how to use it.
I’m glad to hear that you’re having great results with Twitter.
Have a great day π
Susan
Great information, Susan. I see stolen pins all the time on Pinterest. Now I almost always check to make sure a pin is legit before I repin it. But I didn’t really think to check my own – duh! I will be doing that from now on. π
Hi Neena,
Yeah, it’s sad that people are willing to stoop so low to steal other people’s work. I had no clue that it was going on until I noticed that my pin had been stolen.
Like you, now I try to pay more attention to the pins before I repin them.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day π
Susan
OH my goodness this is awful – not your tutorial, but the act of stealing pins! On the good side, that’s awesome you got your stolen pin sorted out – and in one day! On the yucko side – dang blogging is already vulnerable enough and to worry about people not liking your stuff is one thing but to worry about people taking your stuff is kinda the worst.
I’m sorry you experienced this, BUT your experience has put light on an important issue and shows how to help stop it! Super sorry your work got stolen, but super happy you took action and also wrote this post so others can take action too. I am going to be more vigilant now for myself and others and for sure report any theft I come across.
Thanks so much for this important tutorial.
Hi Bonnie,
Yeah, it definitely sucks that people would actually do that. If my tutorial can help at least one person, then that’s awesome.
Hopefully, you’ll never have to deal with this issue.
Have a great day π
Susan
Hi Susan, I came across this post because I am having the same issue with stolen pins. Exactly the same- someone repinning my watermarked images and linking it to their site. I have followed these steps exactly and Pinterest have responded say they won’t do anything about it as they’re not responsible for where pins link too! Any suggestions? Thanks!
Hi Tamsin,
Sorry that they told you that. I’ve actually reported 3 pins and have never had any issues. They have always removed the stolen pin without any issues. Every time I reported a pin it never took more than 6 hours unless it was the weekend.
Not sure why they told you that. Unfortunately, I have no clue what to do as I’ve never experienced this.
Good luck with this and be sure to let me know how you got this taken care of.
Have a great day π
Susan
Thank you so much for sharing this information! I just found two of my pins that were stolen (redirected to another website). Grrr. Mine had my URL still on them too.
I followed your steps and instructions exactly and just submitted the copyright complaint form to Pinterest. Much easier than I was expecting but yes, still annoying that we have to deal with it.
Thank you again for your clear instructions!!! Here’s hoping they remove my stolen pins quickly!!
Hi Laura,
Sorry, you had to deal with that, but that seems to be a huge problem on Pinterest.
Glad you were able to follow the step-by-step tutorial and get your pin reported. They are very good about removing the stolen pins, so I have no doubt that you will hear back from them soon.
I hope you don’t have to deal with this issue again anytime soon.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day π
Susan