Pinterest wants more men — and it’ll filter out the girly stuff for them

Pinterest has a gender problem — not enough male users. So it’s adding filters to help users customize results, the company announced today.

As Pinterest engineer Pei Yin writes in a blog post:

For example, say you’re looking for a new watch. Before when you searched Pinterest for “watches,” your results would include mostly women’s timepieces. But now, men will see Pins and guides inspired by what other guys have Pinned, and everybody’s results should feel a lot closer to what they’re looking for. Of course if you ever want results for another gender, like if you’re shopping for a gift for someone else, you can always use the guides to fine-tune your search.

Pinterest got its start as an image-heavy social network of “pins” (items posted on Pinterest), and has since increasingly focused on becoming a search engine for images.

After launching Guided Search in April, Pinterest has continued to improve its capabilities, including with today’s gender-based filters. Pinterest adds that although it should automatically adjust results for men (and women), they can manually adjust the filters in their profile settings if need be.

Attracting more male users seems to be a big focus for Pinterest right now, especially as it continues to push its monetization plans. Earlier this week, it acquired Kosei, a recommendation engine for products to better target its promoted pins (read: ads). Having more male users would open more advertising — and revenue — opportunities for the company.

In 2014, Pinterest’s male user base in the U.S. grew 73 percent year over year, a spokesperson told VentureBeat via email. Back in May, RJMetrics studied more than 50,000 pins and claimed that only 8 percent of Pinterest pins were from men.

Here’s a look at male Pinterest users’ activity, according to Pinterest:

The top interests followed by men

1. men’s apparel

2. technology

3. travel

4. gardening

5. recipes

6. gadgets

7. design

8. luxury cars

9. tattoos

10. camping

Trending searches by men

1. men’s short hair

2. cinema 4d

3. ham radio

4. cool watches for men

5. mens tattoo ideas

6. fixed gear

7. shoulder tattoo men

8. hifi

9. rat rod

10. kayak fishing