03 · How Pinterest search works, in plain words¶

Pinterest doesn't publish its ranking. What follows is what Pinterest says in its own help pages, then practice from people who pin for a living, labelled as such.

What Pinterest says¶

Titles and descriptions help delivery. Pinterest's specs page says descriptions don't show in home or search feeds but "help the algorithm with delivery", and only the first ~40 characters of a title show in feeds (Pinterest Help: product specs).
Shape matters. 2:3 is the recommended ratio; taller pins may be cut off in feeds (same source).
It counts what people do. Impressions, saves, pin clicks and outbound clicks are the metrics Pinterest reports (Pinterest Help: Analytics). Treat them as the signals the platform watches too.
Search and saves drive Trends. The Trends tool is built from searches and saves (Pinterest Help: Trends).
Repetitive saving is spam. "Don't create or save content that is repetitive" (Community Guidelines).

Practice to test (not Pinterest's words)¶

Fresh images beat re-saves. Scheduling tools define "the same pin" as the same image with the same link and advise new images for the same page (Tailwind help).
Consistency over bursts. A few pins spread across the week, every week, is the common advice; there is no published number.
Slow start. New pins and new accounts often take weeks to collect search impressions. Judge at 90 days.
Seasonal terms rise early. Pin seasonal topics before the peak Trends shows, not on the day.

So, in one line¶

Pick a search term people really type, put it in the board name, the first 40 characters of the title and the description, show the result in a clear 2:3 image, link to a page that delivers it, and keep making new pins.