Pinterest localises search to expand globally

Pinterest has announced that it has made some improvements to deliver a localised search experience. This new development would help the company, which has millions of US users, to expand globally.

In a blog post, Pinterest revealed that it has found pinners from Brazil, France, Germany and Japan who save various local pins on the eponymous photo sharing network. This sparked off the idea of localising its search functionality. The company says international pinners from Brazil, France or Germany will now be able to find local pins that are more familiar and relevant to them right through the localised search.

The network will use its location tracking feature to enable the localised search experience. Besides, international pinners will get customised trending searches on the basis of their country data.

Pinterest has also added spell-check and search suggestions especially for pinners in French, German, Japanese and Portuguese. The company's engineering team has designed new language detection models and improved search algorithms to bring enhancements to search such as localised results, international autocomplete and international spellcheck.

"Based on what we've seen so far, these new improvements are already helping our international Pinners find what exactly they're looking for. Across Brazil, France, Germany and Japan, people are finding and Pinning twice as many local Pins when they search," said Rui Jiang, engineering manager, Pinterest. "So we're really looking forward to seeing what these improved search results do for Pinners in all our other countries."

San Francisco-based Pinterest estimates that the new development will help attract more international pinners, as the number of pinners outside the US grows to nearly half of all 100 monthly active users. It also appears to be a move to compete against leading social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Pinterest had raised $367m in "primary financing" at a valuation of $11bn in March and is aiming to make a potential total of $578m through a Series G round. The valuation of the company is an indication of its swift growth in the world of startups.