Proof that Pinterest links are worthless for SEO?

[Jantaro]

One of our most popular blog posts (http://www.yournextdress.com/5-back-baring-dresses-rosie-huntington-whiteley/) has been pinterested 25K-56K times (22K according to Google Webmaster Tools, 56K according to the Pinterest widget).

Still, when I do a google search for "5 Back-Baring Dresses Like Rosie Huntington-Whiteley", our blog post is outranked by Polyvore. While the latter has a much higher domain authority, the page they're outranking us with is simply linking to our page and has zero authority. In other words, it seems like over 25K links from Pinterest does nothing for the authority of our page. Am I not understanding things correctly?

Let me emphaisize that we've never done any sort of link building on Pinterest, all the links have been generated organically (if that is the right term).

[mblsolutions]

Hi Jan

Like Michael says Pinterest has "nofollows" attached to it so you wont directly benefit from having been pinterested 25K-56k times in terms of link juice.

The benefits that you are getting from  the pins is the passing of your brand through out  all these various Pinterest Accounts and then for all their followers seeing your brand as well.

There are some interesting tips on Pinterest here http://socialmediatoday.com/malharbarai/1182326/5-seo-tricks-pinterest

Hope that helps.

[MichaelYork]

Hi Jan,

I would imagine the Pinterest links are all "nofollow" and not passing authority, also the link from Polyvore is also "nofollow".

The reality is there pages have more authority, the title is the same and at present that is why you are being outranked.

I guess the most important question is; "does it matter very much?" - I haven't searched the keyword tool for an estimation on search traffic, but I'd hazard a guess it is slim to nil. The fact that they outrank you due to SEO factors is unimportant if there is no organic traffic. You outrank them on the social factors, hence the larger following and that is where the traffic is, so if I could pick more Pinterest traffic or more Google traffic for this instance, I know where I'd be putting my money.

Hope this is of some assistance.