Pinterest to become an affiliate’s best friend again

Affiliates are about to love Pinterest once again. Fifteen months ago, Pinterest banned affiliate links from the image social network, citing issues about poor user experience. Too many variables, such as broken images, spam images and bad redirects were destroying the excitement on the site, so an executive decision was made to remove and cease support for affiliate redirects, links and trackers.

Fortunately, this isn’t lasting forever. Pinterest today reports that affiliate links are back in play. The new decision is based on improved spam tracking technology that can help ensure that the affiliate experience does not detract from a solid engagement experience. Plus, Pinterest wants to encourage said engagement, ensuring that active users get rewarded. After all, removing this capability was a demotivator for active participants of the network.

Mike Mayzel on Pinterest’s communication team sheds more insight into the decision, saying, “Last year we removed affiliate links from Pinterest because spammers were abusing them. Now that our spam detection system is much stronger and as a result we have better link quality, we believe it is the right time to reconsider our policy and allow affiliate links.”

It’s expected that this change will bring more participation, especially if their Pins can make money. “We think there is a benefit to content producers and publishers getting value from their audiences on Pinterest and as a result they will add more quality content into the service. With more content, Pinners will find more ideas and continue to have a great experience which will in turn deliver more value to partners,” Mayzel said.

Another objective of supporting affiliate Pins is to support an international audience, encouraging them to “create better and more content for Pinterest” which will “make for a better experience for our international Pinners.”

The restoration of affiliate links in Pins means one good thing: more participation on the network as it will provide additional revenue sources to community members who have previously found a solid return on their investment. The more engagement, the more appealing the network is to just about everyone who comes into contact with it.