I would like the views of the more experienced webmasters here. We have like 4K pins from Pinterest users and do not know if this is good or bad or does not matter? We've thought of blocking Pinterest...

We've thought of blocking Pinterest...

This is an outrageous comment that exemplifies how Google is making the internet a crappy place. The very fact that there are webmasters who are considering blocking pinterest...wow...

This is paranoid.

The links in the the descriptions on Pinterest are "follow" and those can be repined 1000s of times. There are no follow and follow links on Pinterest

The links in the the descriptions on Pinterest are "follow" and those can be repined 1000s of times.

Thus "unnatural linking" if you link back hundreds of times from your Pinterest board to your website?

@Chrisv1963, If an "Authority" Pinner uses a link in the description, one would think that it should have value and more so if it appears on other boards. I dont see it as unnatural.

I doubt it would be pinterest that is causing the issues I have sites that have collected thousands of pinterest links and no problem here.

I'm presently checking backlinks for a penguinized site, which has about 200 links from this Pinterest because people must like the images, and most of these look like good backlinks to me. I don't see how they could do any harm, and I'm definitely not going to disavow them.

This is an outrageous comment that exemplifies how Google is making the internet a crappy place. The very fact that there are webmasters who are considering blocking pinterest

If you are a merchant and spend a lot of time on images it might be worth blocking them since pinterest is quite literally stealing your images for their own use and making it even easier for your competitors to steal your images.

We're seriously considering blocking it, but we only have about 40 images that have been tagged so far and I have no intention of putting that button on our pages.

If you are a merchant and spend a lot of time on images it might be worth blocking them since pinterest is quite literally stealing your images

There are may be valid reasons to block pinterest in some cases, but it is really sad if the times has come that webmasters will block pinterest because of potential impact on Google rankings. If that happens then the internet is seriously broken. Broken by Google. I am not saying Google is so stupid as to punish for pinterest links, they are probably not, but their intimidation campaign is causing a lot of damage.

Personally, I welcome Pinterest. It drives traffic to my website. People pin and re-pin images from my site, and along with it goes the clickable link. My friends and I have also used Pinterst to create a "gift ideas" folder, where I pin products from websites like Amazon.com, along with the links to the product page. I'm embracing Pinterest... so far so good.

Lazy lawyers need to get off the couch and sue Pinterest into oblivion.

If not, hopefully it'll die of natural causes. It still hasn't figured out how to make money. Lol.

I have no intention of putting that button on our pages.

Good! Putting that button on your pages is similar to leaving the doors of your house unlocked at night. Only one click between your content and duplication. And a few weeks later the duplicate might show up in Google Image Search and "kill" the original.

@chrisv1963 - Yes that is exactly what happens. My images get pinned a lot and I am finding my images posted on Pinterest rank far better than on my own site. But rather than look at that as a negative thing I see it is a way to gain exposure for images that never ranked well in GI to begin with. At least Pinterest is driving them up in the rankings and I have each image watermarked with my site's URL so they can always find me. I do wonder if pinning too many images too quickly can creat problems though...I started pinning my own images and whammo my site has been hit hard by the last update. Not sure if there is any corellation though.