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if pinterest reads the text on my image, why am i still writing descriptions

Questions & help 3,330
Emma Wilson

Every guide now says put the keyword in the text overlay because the image gets scanned. If that's true then the overlay is the one field you can't skip and title/description are secondary. Except I've also got pins with zero text on the graphic that rank perfectly well. I can't work out whether overlay text is a genuine ranking input or just a click-through thing that people have mislabelled as SEO.

# images # overlay # ranking

3 replies

Olivia James

Two different claims keep getting collapsed into one. That Pinterest can read text in an image is a content-understanding thing and they've talked about doing it. Whether an overlay phrase is weighted in search ranking the way a title is — nobody outside Pinterest knows, and everybody writing about it is guessing confidently. I put the phrase on the graphic because it makes the pin more clickable. If the machine also reads it, fine.

Priya R

Your no-text pins ranking fine doesn't disprove anything, it just means overlay text isn't required. A clear photo of a recognisable object carries plenty of signal on its own without anyone writing a word on it.

dev_null_42

practical version: if the image needs the overlay to make sense, put it on. if the photo already unmistakably says chocolate cake, writing CHOCOLATE CAKE across it in a serif font is just noise you've added to your own picture

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