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Pinterest Skimming Links

by CurtisSWN
21 replies
I'm trying to understand this situation, but it appears that Pinterest is modifying affiliate links that users will add to their pins.

They seem to profit a little from each link, but am I correct in that the affiliate sale's commission still goes to the affiliate who pinned the image?

The real issue is the disclosure, however I am more than willing to pass along a little of my commission as a "payment" for the traffic.

Just wondering if other warriors have similar thoughts, or may be able to clarify the issue.
#links #pinterest #skimming
  • Profile picture of the author BCRed
    Can you provide an example of this. If they're doing something like this without disclosing it's a massive issue.
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  • Profile picture of the author botninja
    Last I heard they were adding their affiliate link to links that had no user added affiliate links (if that makes sense). Think I read somewhere that this caused so much of an uproar that they have stopped?

    If you have your affiliate link on there you should be okay, they will not add their own ID onto links.

    Not guaranteeing this is correct - will try to find the article I was reading a couple of weeks ago.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Originally Posted by CurtisSWN View Post

    I'm trying to understand this situation, but it appears that Pinterest is modifying affiliate links that users will add to their pins.
    How dare they.

    For people that are simply trying to spam their website with affiliate links, with no interest of contributing anything useful in any way. Seriously, thats terrible.

    Id call them and complain.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
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      Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

      How dare they.

      For people that are simply trying to spam their website with affiliate links, with no interest of contributing anything useful in any way. Seriously, thats terrible.

      Id call them and complain.
      My thoughts exactly. Let's see ... Pinterest, who is currently fighting the spammers using their site has the audacity to change links to their own and maybe even profit from their own site.

      I have no idea if they are doing that, but I sure would if it were my site. One thing for certain ... I would stop the affiliate marketers using Pinterest blasters to blast the site with spam links and create massive amounts of Pinterest profiles. I don't think they have anything to apologize for in both profiting from their own site and getting rid of Pinterest spammers.
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      • Profile picture of the author sonicadam123
        Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

        My thoughts exactly. Let's see ... Pinterest, who is currently fighting the spammers using their site has the audacity to change links to their own and maybe even profit from their own site.

        I have no idea if they are doing that, but I sure would if it were my site. One thing for certain ... I would stop the affiliate marketers using Pinterest blasters to blast the site with spam links and create massive amounts of Pinterest profiles. I don't think they have anything to apologize for in both profiting from their own site and getting rid of Pinterest spammers.
        You've hit the nail on the head there.

        Needed to be said.
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      • Profile picture of the author Cataclysm1987
        Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

        How dare they.

        For people that are simply trying to spam their website with affiliate links, with no interest of contributing anything useful in any way. Seriously, thats terrible.

        Id call them and complain.
        Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

        My thoughts exactly. Let's see ... Pinterest, who is currently fighting the spammers using their site has the audacity to change links to their own and maybe even profit from their own site.

        I have no idea if they are doing that, but I sure would if it were my site. One thing for certain ... I would stop the affiliate marketers using Pinterest blasters to blast the site with spam links and create massive amounts of Pinterest profiles. I don't think they have anything to apologize for in both profiting from their own site and getting rid of Pinterest spammers.
        Right but that's a lot like saying there are a couple of spammers in a room full of people, therefore let's throw a few grenades in that room.

        You kill the spammers but also the legitimate pinners who just want a commission from what they're doing as well. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, what's the difference between pinning something you like and pinning something you like with an affiliate link?

        Pinterest needs to take a more complex solution to this problem rather than just nuking their way out of it.
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        • Profile picture of the author cashcow
          Originally Posted by Cataclysm1987 View Post

          You kill the spammers but also the legitimate pinners who just want a commission from what they're doing as well. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, what's the difference between pinning something you like and pinning something you like with an affiliate link?
          I bet that the legitimate pincers aren't doing it to get affiliate commissions - they are doing it for the fun of it and to organize their "stuff" visually on boards and connect with others. Thats what it was meant to be, right? A social media outlet, not a site for people to make money from.

          I'd bet that not allowing affiliate links wouldn't even put a damper in the activity of the legitimate pinners, in fact, I bet most of them don't even know what an affiliate commission is.
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        • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Cataclysm1987 View Post

          Right but that's a lot like saying there are a couple of spammers in a room full of people, therefore let's throw a few grenades in that room.

          You kill the spammers but also the legitimate pinners who just want a commission from what they're doing as well. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, what's the difference between pinning something you like and pinning something you like with an affiliate link?

          Pinterest needs to take a more complex solution to this problem rather than just nuking their way out of it.
          Pinterest was highly popular before the IMers got wind of it. I know this is a radical concept, but it was/is a popular social network and they've been sharing photos with no affiliate links for a couple of years now.

          It isn't just a couple of spammers in the room. Now that it's the hot topic on the WF, it's thousands of spammers with bots to create thousands of fake profiles ... same old same old. Seek and destroy until Pinterest cracks down on it and they all come back here whining about how Pinterest banned all their fake accounts.

          No one ever seems to see the writing on the wall, although it's written in 10 ft. high letters in bright red.

          Youtube bans accounts of IMers
          Squidoo deletes many IMers lenses
          Blogger deletes many IMers blogs
          Hubpages deletes many IMers pages
          Ezinearticles cracks down on junk content
          Twitter has a massive lawsuit against TweetAttacks and other automated Twitter spam programs
          Facebook has had massive lawsuits against spammers

          It goes on and on and when one site tightens up and the tricks stop working, they attack a new site, spending endless amounts of time and effort on new tools to spam these sites.

          Never once does it occur to these spammers that it's a short term proposition ... that spamming these sites will always fail eventually and that all that time and effort could have been spent building a long term business.
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          • Profile picture of the author Cataclysm1987
            Originally Posted by cashcow View Post

            I bet that the legitimate pincers aren't doing it to get affiliate commissions - they are doing it for the fun of it and to organize their "stuff" visually on boards and connect with others. Thats what it was meant to be, right? A social media outlet, not a site for people to make money from.

            I'd bet that not allowing affiliate links wouldn't even put a damper in the activity of the legitimate pinners, in fact, I bet most of them don't even know what an affiliate commission is.
            Right, but you don't think a significant number of them do both?

            In other words, Suzy has fun on Pinterest, learns what IM is, then decides to add a few affiliate links to get paid for her commissions?

            Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

            Pinterest was highly popular before the IMers got wind of it. I know this is a radical concept, but it was/is a popular social network and they've been sharing photos with no affiliate links for a couple of years now.

            It isn't just a couple of spammers in the room. Now that it's the hot topic on the WF, it's thousands of spammers with bots to create thousands of fake profiles ... same old same old. Seek and destroy until Pinterest cracks down on it and they all come back here whining about how Pinterest banned all their fake accounts.

            No one ever seems to see the writing on the wall, although it's written in 10 ft. high letters in bright red.

            Youtube bans accounts of IMers
            Squidoo deletes many IMers lenses
            Blogger deletes many IMers blogs
            Hubpages deletes many IMers pages
            Ezinearticles cracks down on junk content
            Twitter has a massive lawsuit against TweetAttacks and other automated Twitter spam programs
            Facebook has had massive lawsuits against spammers

            It goes on and on and when one site tightens up and the tricks stop working, they attack a new site, spending endless amounts of time and effort on new tools to spam these sites.

            Never once does it occur to these spammers that it's a short term proposition ... that spamming these sites will always fail eventually and that all that time and effort could have been spent building a long term business.
            Neither one of us knows the raw statistics on how many spammers are on Pinterest versus how many legitimate pinners with affiliate links, so I'm not going to bother arguing about it.

            What I will say is I think a more targeted approach to spam would be smarter than this.

            Like account flagging, algorithmic detection or going after companies that promote products or services geared towards spamming, similar to what Twitter did with Tweet Attacks and other services.

            Nuking all affiliate links may kill the spammers but it will also ruin some of the incentive of real pinners to pin more because they are not only making money but enjoying themselves. Pinterest would be hurting themselves if they did that in my opinion.
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            • Profile picture of the author cashcow
              Originally Posted by Cataclysm1987 View Post

              Right, but you don't think a significant number of them do both?

              In other words, Suzy has fun on Pinterest, learns what IM is, then decides to add a few affiliate links to get paid for her commissions?
              Actually I don't. I know a ton of friends and family that use pinterest and they have no idea what an affiliate is.

              I think there are really very few affiliate marketers in relation to "regular" people in the real world. It seems like there is a lot because we are in that business but I bet in reality affiliate marketers probably make up a very small percentage of pinterest users.
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        • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
          Originally Posted by Cataclysm1987 View Post

          Right but that's a lot like saying there are a couple of spammers in a room full of people, therefore let's throw a few grenades in that room.
          "Kill'em all, and let God sort'em out..."
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  • Profile picture of the author Long Beach Nathan
    Apparently, Pinterest actually was changing the links to their own for a few days, and then they stopped. Now, I think they just take the affiliate link out. Even though they may have disclosed to their members that they were putting their own link in, I believe that would actually violate many site's TOS.
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    • Profile picture of the author spunkz
      Originally Posted by Long Beach Nathan View Post

      Apparently, Pinterest actually was changing the links to their own for a few days, and then they stopped. Now, I think they just take the affiliate link out. Even though they may have disclosed to their members that they were putting their own link in, I believe that would actually violate many site's TOS.
      yep, briefly they were changing the affiliate links to their own. But now they are just stripping them out. The best way to continue to affiliate market on Pinterest is to link to your own website first.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tjalling
    They used to modify links and earn cash via a site called Skimlinks. There was so much commotion about this that they had to change it back. As far as I know you can still earn money via Amazon affiliate links. You just have to edit the link of the image afterwards.

    Edit:

    Hmm Wikipedia says that they are still modifying links via Skimlinks. They might have started to use it again.

    (under the section ''Usage'') http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinterest
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  • Profile picture of the author lotsofsnow
    ... Wikipedia says..

    Wow, what a reliable source...
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    I too had heard that they had stopped doing this, and as Amazon has a lot of rules, I would not be surprised if this broke their TOS. I don't know for sure either way, though.
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  • Profile picture of the author gurokevin
    So are they taking out ALL affiliate links now?
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    • Profile picture of the author igorGriffiths
      Decided not to use Pinterest as their T&C's were quite clear that your content should not be all about you or be created to benefit you.

      How the wheel turns, now they are using your content for their benefit!

      Pinterest was never a way to build a business just a short term opportunity that many had the sense to grab, perhaps the party is over.
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