Why Pinterest Rates Most Pins a 3 Out of 5

Pinterest's search engineers published a paper a few weeks ago with one line worth reading twice. They wrote that what people click and save doesn't always tell them whether the result was actually relevant.

That's Pinterest saying your saves are not proof, and they built an entire system because of it. Every search result now gets graded one to five, and most of your pins are sitting at a three.

Engagement and Relevance Are Two Different Things

Pinterest watches your saves and clicks, and their paper says that doesn't reliably tell them whether your user found what they searched for. People save a hundred things for a hundred reasons. It was pretty. They were bored on a Tuesday and doom scrolling. None of that means the pin answered the question.

Why Pinterest Rates Most Pins a 3 Out of 5: Spotify

Why Pinterest Rates Most Pins a 3 Out of 5: Apple

So Pinterest built a way to check.

Picture a library desk. Someone asks for chocolate chip cookies, and a librarian grades what came back. A five if it's exactly right, a one if it's nowhere close. Now it's a system that looks at your pin image and reads the words at the same time.

I'd rather you hear this from me than from a reel. This is Pinterest checking its own work, and the decisions about what you see still run the way they always have. What it means is Pinterest can now see improvements they used to be blind to.

Your Board Names Are Doing More Than You Think

The names of the boards a pin sits on get read. Yours, and the boards other people save it to. A pin on Weeknight Dinners and 30-Minute Recipes arrives at that desk with an answer attached. One on Recipes or Later arrives with nothing.

So I'll challenge you on your board names. Color Crush, or Unbothered Mindset with a little heart after it. The computer has no idea what those mean. Name the board the way a person would search for it. The First Searches Stick to the Pin

This changes what you do in a pin's first week. The searches a pin has already earned clicks from are part of how it gets graded going forward, so the first ones matter more than the ten thousandth. When a pin earns early traction from the wrong search, that slow week isn't something you shake off and ride back up. It stays on.

Put a hot phrase on a pin without making it hyper-relevant to what you sell, and you get a lovely burst of clicks from people who wanted that phrase. Six months later you're staring at your best numbers ever, wondering why none of it brought a buyer.

Pinterest is free. Wrong traffic costs you for as long as that pin is alive.

Fine Is a Three

Here's the hardest part of the paper to sit with. The scale runs one to five, and the middle grade is marginally relevant. Sort of about it. Related, adjacent, fine. And fine is where most Pinterest accounts are living.

A pin about meal planning when the search was freezer meals for new parents is a three. A three doesn't get handed to the person standing at the desk.

This is why one pin aimed at one search beats one pin aimed at nine. Every extra thing you try to cover drags that pin toward the middle.

Relevance, Intent, and Outcome

Your picture confirming the keyword is the fastest way out of the middle. The grader looks at your image and checks whether the picture and the words say the same thing.

Your title says freezer meals for new parents and your image is a stock photo of a clean kitchen counter. That's a three. The words promised something the picture never confirmed. Swap it for labeled containers stacked in a real freezer, and that picture confirms the words. Now it can be a five.

Here's where this goes past keywords. There are three things to think about: relevance, whether that's the key phrase or the long-tail phrase. The intent behind the search. And the outcome they came for.

So ask your image more than one question. Does this prove my title? Does it prove the intent? Does it give them the outcome they came for?

Final Pin Drop

Saves are not proof. Pinterest said so themselves, in writing. What gets you handed to the right person is being the answer all the way through.

Four things. Name your boards the way Pinterest understands them. Send a new pin its first clicks from the right search. Aim one pin at one thing. Make the picture confirm the title.

Then pull up five pins from last month and grade them yourself, one to five. Be mean about it.

If you've been told for years that Pinterest is where you post pretty things, this paper is your receipt.

Go grade your pins. Bring a red pen.

📌 Book a PinChat → laurarike.com/pinchat