Facebook Pixel
Join our Facebook Community

Introduction to Trackbacks

Posted By Darren Rowse 26th of February 2006 Miscellaneous Blog Tips 0 Comments


The following post has been submitted by Andy Wibbels – a guy who is a good friend and associate. He and I run Six Figure Blogging together (something I enjoy because I think our skill sets complement each other very well – ie he knows what he’s talking about technically and I have no idea). I’ve asked Andy to write an introduction to Trackbacks – a topic I’m constantly asked for information about.

Summary: TrackBacks automate the interlinking of blog posts, but often don’t contribute to search engine ranking.

TrackBacks are notoriously difficult to explain and is an exercise that makes a great judge of the skill of any self-described ‘blogging expert.’ So here I go!

You get comments right? Easy enough. You write a post on your blog. Someone reads it and thinks you’re either sliced bread or vile ooze and comments accordingly. Just like having a mini-guestbook for each post.

What if I want to leave a comment about your blog post on my blog? That’s where TrackBacks come in.

Let’s say I read something pretty fantastic on your blog and so I write up a post about on my blog: “Hey you gotta check this out, here’s a quote from it and here’s the link to it.” And I link to that particular post on your blog. And I click publish.

Unbeknownst to most, your blog platform – whether it is WordPress or Movable Type or TypePad, scans all the links in a post each time a post is published. It finds my link to your post and then goes out to your blog and checks to see if your post is accepting TrackBacks. If so, my blog sends a little ping! to your blog as if to say, ‘Hey! Andy’s talking about you over on his blog.’ and your blog answers the ping and says ‘Alright, I’ll make a note of it.’ And then your blog makes a little note on that particular post that in effect says, “Besides all these comments under this post, here’s someone talking about this post on their own site – and here’s the link to it.”

So readers of your blog can see not just what the commenters are saying about it on your blog – but what other bloggers are saying about. I’ve seen a post’s list of TrackBacks described as ‘Other blogs linking to this post.’ Many blog tools, like WordPress, lump comments and TrackBacks into the same list.

You don’t have to know how TrackBacks work in order to use them, you can simply set a post to be able to receive trackbacks and set your blog to send them when you publish new posts. Your blog platform should do all the heavy lifting and email you when there are new TrackBacks – just like it does when there are new comments to a post.

TrackBack was first created by Ben and Mena Trott during the early days of Movable Type and has gradually been integrated into the features of most popular blog platforms. A similar technology is pingbacks which has the added security of checking to see if the pinging site actually exists.

Of course like anything fun or cool online, the evil bastard spammers got busy funneling their sewage into automated TrackBacks pingbots that left everyone’s blogs with dainty messages about mortgages, online poker and Viagra. Most comment spam blockers are now configured to also scan TrackBacks to help stem the tide of spammy TrackBacks.

One of the best parts about TrackBack is that it helped to increase your blog’s linked-ness and search engine ranking. With the introduction of the ‘no follow’ attribute, links in comments and TrackBacks are usually often not included in the calculation of your blog’s Google PageRank. I presume this applies to the other search engines as well. Still, the findability may not be in the search ranking – but links from other blogs is always a Good Thing.

In TypePad:

To enable TrackBacks by default in TypePad, go to Weblogs > (Your Blog) > Configure > Preferences > Comment and TrackBack Preferences: Check the checkbox ‘Hold comments and TrackBacks for approval.’ And set Default TrackBack Status set to ‘New posts accept TrackBacks.’ (for receiving TrackBacks)

In WordPress:

To enable TrackBacks by default in WordPress ,go to Options > Discussion: Check the checkbox ‘Attempt to notify any Weblogs linked to from the article.’ (for sending TrackBacks) Check the check box ‘Allow link notifications from other Weblogs. (for receiving TrackBacks)

In Movable Type:

To enable TrackBacks by default in Movable Type, go to (Your Blog) > Configuration > Preferences > Publicity/Remote Interfaces/TrackBack: Check the checkbox ‘Allow TrackBack Pings On by Default.’ (for sending TrackBacks) Check the checkbox ‘Email New TrackBack Pings.’ Check the checkbox ‘Enable TrackBack Auto-Discovery.’ (for receiving TrackBacks)

Andy Wibbels is an award-winning blogger and author of Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging. He has helped companies all over the world use blogs to market their businesses through seminars like Blog Your Way to a Bestseller, Easy Bake Weblogs, RSS Essentials, Podcasting Bootcamp and Business Blog Basics (co-creator). Andy is co-creator of the Six Figure Blogging seminar, with Darren Rowse.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Andy Wibbels talks about Trackbacks on Problogger

    I just read one of the simplest explanations of Trackbacks that actually makes sense that I have seen by Problogger guest poster Andy Wibbels. Excellent post.

  2. Since this post was about Trackbacks, I just couldn’t resist the urge to send you one from my blog. :)

    Just out of curiostiy, does anyone know if there is a way to configure WordPress to use your name when you send a trackback or a ping instead of the name of your blog?

  3. Good down-to-earth explanation. Trackbacks and pings (oops, nearly typed pigs) were the things that confused me most when I first got into blogging. As you say though, most blogging platforms sort this all out for you.

  4. Hey Darren (and Andy),

    Good explaination, now if you would tell me how to do it on Blogger.com. Sorry, but I know I’m not the only one still using that service…

    Joe

  5. Joe,

    If I remember correctly, http://www.Haloscan.com allows you to send and receive trackbacks on Blogger.

  6. Articulate, but not watered down, and yet simple. Good job, Andy, and thanks for publishing this Darren.

  7. Hey Robb D,

    Thanks a lot, I’ll try it out and let you know how it works out.

    Thanks,
    Joe

  8. Glad you guys enjoy it!

  9. Interesting but I have a query… Most blogging platforms like WP automatically trackback and the reverse looking at the links in the post. So why do we need to have a separate field called trackback below the psot?

  10. I use that field when the trackback doesn’t seem to ‘take’ automatically. You can pop-in the trackback URL and Save and it’ll try pinging the source. It’s just a bit more direct than the ‘auto-discovery’ thing.

  11. A clear, straightforward explanation of an arcane concept. But have I missed something? I can’t find a Trackback address on the ProBlogger post. Do you have them enabled?

  12. Joseph, I wondered the same thing. Problogger is uses WordPress and the default trackback url for WordPress is the name is the permalink for the post /trackback. For this post i just used https://problogger.com/introduction-to-trackbacks/trackback where I just manually added the /trackback in.

  13. Know that the TrackBack link doesn’t have to be visible to the reader for the blog platform to find it. Viewing this post on the front page won’t show the TrackBack link because of the templates.

    If you view this post on it’s own page, view the source code and pretty far down you’ll see a big swatch of code that’s been commented out. This is the RDF/XML code that a linking blog looks for to know where to send the TrackBack. In this case:

    trackback:ping="https://problogger.com/introduction-to-trackbacks/trackback/"

  14. […] Introduction to Trackbacks Andy Wibbels publishes one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen of this arcane concept February 26th 2006 Posted to Blogging and Wikis, Marketing, Best Practices, Corporate Blogging         Trackback    Permalink […]

  15. Hey Guys,

    For any of you who learn better visually, check out
    Jim Edwards video blog on TrackBacks

    http://www.igottatellyou.com/blog/archives/2005/02/how_to_really_g.html

    Here’s what you’ll learn:
    Part 1 – What are “Track Back Links” and how do they work?
    Part 2 – Demonstrating Setting Up Actual “Track Back Links”
    Part 3 – Putting It All Together

    http://www.igottatellyou.com/blog/archives/2005/02/how_to_really_g.html

    Enjoy!

    PS: Hey Darren, when you starting that daily PodCast? ;-)

  16. One of the hidden downsides of trackbacks is that most blogging systems put a nofollow tag on your link. If they do that, you might consider putting the same tag on the link you use to link to their post. Otherwise, you’re getting ripped off.

  17. Yeah, I’d mentioned that above. It really depends on your reasons for sending a TrackBack. If it is strictly for traffic exchange then you can use the nofollow attribute to avoid getting ‘ripped off’. Still, in a greater altruistic context, it helps the overall ‘linked-ness’ of things.

  18. […] I’ve heard about trackbacks a lot and have finally found out what they are exactly through this post over at ‘Problogger’, thanks for the post. Hopefully I’ll be able to use them now. I can’t believe I didn’t understand them now, I think that was a great explanation […]

  19. […] Read my full explanation… Track this topic on other blogs: blogging, blogs, trackbacks […]

  20. […] Introduction to Trackbacks […]

  21. […] Over at ProBlogger Andy Wibbels has written a very detailed explanation of what is a trackback link. I don’t think you will find a better explanation anywhere else on the internet. A usefull tool, but a lot of people just can’t figure it out. Check out the detailed explanation. […]

  22. Excellent explanation, defined trackbacks for me in one read. Thanks!

  23. How to use Trackbacks….

    Trackback has been one of the hardest thing to understand in the weblog community. If you understand it and use it well, it can do wonder for your blog in terms of creating more value to your readers, improve your credibility by proving you are reading…

  24. […] This morning I read a post over at ProBlogger by Guest Writer Andy Wibbels about Trackbacks. As you know I offer that as an option for those who would like to write a post for this Blog. […]

  25. really cleared that up for me.
    thanks!

  26. Marazzi…

    Marazzi prin Omnitechgroup…

  27. At last … at last! A succinct explanation for Trackbacks. Andy Wibbels is my Hero! Am writing an article for a real estate magazine about blogging and been hunting an understandable definition. Many Thanks!

  28. Information 1…

    Site 1…

  29. […] “Helping Bloggers Earn Money” is the tagline for this blog. I have learned so much about blogging from Darren Rowse and his wonderful blog. Great articles written to truly inform the reader. A must read for all bloggers.This is what I’m reading about now. […]

  30. […] So where do you go for a quick definition? Most people I guess would say “Wikipedia of course!”, I don’t really have alot of success with tech subjects on Wikipedia, so I basically just use Google and browse the search results. Then I checked out Problogger.net to see if there’s any articles. Introduction to Trackbacks is pretty good. So I get that Trackbacks are a way for the source blog to know that a secondary blog is referring to it, but in my Zoundry editor the field just asks for a trackback URL and I had no idea what to put in there. In one of the comments to the Andy Wibbels article on Problogger I finally found the answer – use the permalink. So what’s the difference between a link and a permalink Well when you go to the homepage of a blog you’ll probably see more than one post So the permalink is just the blog url for that specific post. So what is my permalink before I post? I don’t know, so it may be a thing that I have to do after the fact. […]

  31. Thanks for that explanation, I wasn’t sure what talkbacks were. Went to my blogger blog (420-now.blogspot.com) and figured out how to enable them. So hopefully some people start talking about my site LOL.

  32. […] So if you find a blog article you enjoy, go ahead and link to it when you make a post on your own blog. You will be spreading your name and that blog’s name around. Sort of like a friendly referral network of sorts. You can read more about trackbacks here on problogger.com […]

  33. Thanks for this great article.

    But, as after any good lecture, there are more questions to be risen.

    First is rather technical. I saw a lot of movable type blogs that in trackback section leave the URI for trackbacks which is slightly different than page’s URI. However, neither responds to my posts, i.e. in neither case it leave notification that there is something about that post on my site. What am I doing wrong?

    Second question is a bit about strategy. Usually, when trackback notification is posted with comments it quotes the part of post around the link to the original post. But, in 95% that part is blockquote from original post leaving readers not much information about what reply post is about. How to deal with that?

  34. […] about blog readers, then I’m going to suggest that you browse this blog. Here he explains Trackbacks. And if you browse his blog, he has lots of practical advice on writing blog […]

  35. Is permalink the same as tracback?
    Does this work the same for blogger?
    Thanks
    Maggie

  36. […] Introduction to Trackbacks The following post has been submitted by Andy Wibbels – a guy who is a good friend and associate. He … https://problogger.com/introduction-to-trackbacks/ […]

  37. I am tracking back to this article in my explanation of trackbacks. What could be simpler?

  38. It’s worth track back this article if any body would post regarding trackbacks. So it won’t affect google rankings. But still may recieve some traffoc from main post.

  39. Very good post Darren, I get a few trackbacks/pingbacks on my site but never understood them quite so well until now. I’m glad you mentioned the bit about “You don’t have to know how TrackBacks work in order to use them” cause i was trying to figure out how backlinks to my site were appearing on wordpress, it was because i had it enabled and i didnt even realise – this must be a default setting so thanks for pointing that out.

  40. Just found this as a reference from another blogger. I’m just learning blogging and this is very helpful. I kept reading about trackbacks, but it was never explained as well. Thanks for the effort.

  41. I’m having issues with this trackbacks..! Still trying to resolve the same.. I’m geting those trackbacks listed, if some one clicks on create link on the bottom of the post.! Donno wheher its an issue with the blogger or am ot creating the links correctly.!

  42. Tell about blogger.com trackback system also.

  43. Nice explanation. I actually, sort-of, understand this. Thanks for the explanation..

    KB Hill

  44. Nice text – a trackback is difficult to explain to someone who has no experience with blogging at all.

    After writing many articles and comments and trying trackbacks, you can get a feeling what this feature ist useful for. I’ve been misusing it sometimes, but now I think I got the idea behind this ;)

    Personally, after sending some trackbacks, somehow I prefer writing a comment, sometimes with sending a link to one of my articles, but I prefer writing something, too 8)

  45. Thank you for a very informative post. I am a newbie and really need a “push this button dummy” type of instruction manual as I am a visual learner. I have been looking for this very article for a couple of days. Should have known to come here.

  46. I thought I understood trackbacks but now that I have read this post I feel that I know less than I knew before!

  47. Thank very for this informative post.Nice explanation.Very helpful for newbie bloggers like me.

  48. Good straight forward explanation.

    Also liked the visual one, Than you Swaye for the link.

  49. informative good explanation – thanks

  50. How do we setup Trackbacks on blogger platform?

A Practical Podcast… to Help You Build a Better Blog

The ProBlogger Podcast

A Practical Podcast…

Close
Open