I woke up Friday morning with over 15 emails. All these emails were from Pinterest. Pinterest blocked my site! And they just kept coming. I ended up getting 49 emails in total from Pinterest and they all said the same thing. My website has been blocked.
Even without reading the emails, you could see something was up. My traffic has dropped down to next to nothing.
Each email had a link to appeal. Initially, I appealed the first one and waited. Nothing. So I appealed every single one. And still nothing.
I turned to Google. And others were having the same problem as me. Although, it didn’t seem like everyone else was getting the same email from Pinterest as I was or even an email at all.
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How I Got My Site Unblocked on Pinterest
Unfortunately, for me, this has not been a short process. Which is very annoying, I was thinking that this would be solved in a few hours or at the very most a few days. Which is what Pinterest had led me to believe.
1. Appealed In The Email
As I’ve mentioned above, I appealed every single email that Pinterest sent me. All 49 of them. Initially, I only appealed one – I didn’t want to harass them.
However, after not hearing anything back. I appealed all of them. Especially, since I only had 7 days to appeal the block according to the email.
After clicking the appeal link, I was redirected to a landing page that thanked me for my appeal and said I would hear back soon.
I’m pretty sure that this was a pointless waste of time. Nothing ever came from it.
2. Contact Pinterest Help Center
You can find the Help Center by clicking the 3 dots in the top right-hand corner. Or you can click this link here.
You can try searching but when I tried nothing. Well, nothing helpful.
You’ll have to head all the way to the very bottom and find “Need more help? Send us a note.”
Want to save time? The “Need more help? Send us a note.” link will take you here.
What Can We Help You With
Once there the “Get More Help” page will give you a bunch of options on what they can help you with.
Under appeals, you can find “Pinterest blocked my site.” Slid down the page and hit continue to more on to the next step.
What’s The Issue?
Choose the reason that your site was blocked.
For me, my site what blocked due to spam. I did not find this out from the email, all they had told me was that my site had been blocked. I found out by heading over to Pinterest and actually clicking one of my pins.
Who Are We Helping?
Enter your name, username and email address into the corresponding fields. Obviously, make sure your username is correct and you’re using the same email that you’ve set up your Pinterest account with.
Describe The Issue
Describing the issue is a bit of a long one. Basically, you will want to write a subject and describe the problems that you’ve been having.
In the description, I made a point to add a link to my website and my Pinterest account. Even though, the same questions are asked below.
I also threw in a bunch of pleases and thank yous because I found that it has worked better for me in the past. But I really don’t know if it makes a difference.
For linking to the page or Pin, I did one for both. (I’ve sent out a lot of these requests.)
Under Content Removal Reason, I chose none. None of these reasons would match the reason that it was removed at all. If any of these are the case, they probably won’t unblock your account since they have rules against this type of content.
Since my entire account has been blocked, I link my Pinterest account at the bottom
Tell Us About Your Device
The fourth step in this process is that Pinterest would like to know which device and browser that you’re using.
Possibly to see if it’s just certain devices that it doesn’t work on. Or they are just collecting data. I’m not sure.
Did You Get an Error Message?
I know that I got an error message. EVERYWHERE. On my computer and on my phone.
On my computer, Pinterest would open up a new tab. The first time I tried it I was ecstatic. I thought the ban had been lifted. Then this stupid white little box popped up.
And it crushed all my dreams. Ok, maybe not all my dreams but I was getting very frustrated by this time.
Add Images or Videos
Like instructed, I took a screenshot of the error message I got when I tried to click a link.
Submit Your Issue for Review
Everything looks good? Send it off ASAP. Because they take FOREVER to get back to you. Well, it did for me.
Pinterest Support Email
A few minutes after filling the help center form, Pinterest will send off an automated response from Pinterest Support:
Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out. Your question is a top priority for us and someone on our team will respond as soon as they can. While this can sometimes take a few days, we typically respond within a few hours.
Thanks,
The Pinterest team
Four days later, I still haven’t heard anything! At this point, I was 8 days into my site being blocked as spam. My traffic was down to next to nothing.
Respond to Support Email
So I responded to the Zendesk email. Seriously, if I could do this again I would do it immediately.
My response is what they responded to. And significantly quicker.
I replied to this email on August 9 (Friday) and I FINALLY got a response on Monday (the 12). Here’s the response I received:
Hi there,
Sorry that your website was blocked. Occasionally good sites get caught in the mix when we’re looking for spam.
I have removed your site from our blocklist.
Thanks,
Frodo
Finally, Pinterest Unblocked My Site
After 10 Days. TEN WHOLE DAYS! Pinterest had my site blocked as spam.
I don’t blame Pinterest. I get it, they’re busy.
But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating! I was contemplating on getting a new domain name. Then I thought what’s the point? Maybe I should just quit blogging.
So I was ecstatic when I found that reply this morning! It was a huge relief.
Summary: How to Get Pinterest to Unblock your Site
- Mentally prepare yourself for a potentially long wait.
- Go to the Help Center (here’s a link there)
- Go under Appeals to “Pinterest Blocked My Site”
- Fill out the rest of the form based on your situation
- Reply to their automated email.
- Wait
Good luck getting your site unblocked from Pinterest in a timely fashion.
Has Pinterest blocked your site? Do you have any tips to get unblocked faster?
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