What is a trackback

What is a Trackback - The Basics - in English

by Lid

When you link to a specific blog post (permalink), the person you link to, links back to you….tracks back to your story or post.

This is typically represented by a trackback list, found at the bottom of the post you linked to, with the most recent link to that post appearing at the top.

Pings are little messages, that you send to another blog, letting them know you have included a reference to one of their stories within your post.

For instance:

Recently I wrote about two cool tools Google offers that make my life easier:

Within my post, I mentioned a post Jessica Ewing had put on the Google blog, that explained the process in more detail;

and linked to her post using the words “adding personality to your Google homepage” within my post:

Because I use WordPress, I don’t need to ping the other blog; WordPress does it for me as soon as I link to the post.

So, the next day, I check Jessica’s post on the Google blog and voila…there is the link back to me; the track back to my post titled “Two useful Google tools for Journalists”

The only blogging platform that I have come across that does not support trackback is Blogger (weird, given they allow for trackbacks on their blogs), although it provides an option called backlinks.

Don’t get too excited thinking that trackbacks are seen by the search engines as links into your site; they are not, what trackbacks can do is encourage new readers to visit your blog.

For instance, if someone writes a story that is related to your post, it makes sense to link to them, as this gives your readers additional information. It follows then, that people who read the other blog may be interested in reading what you have to say as well; trackbacks are brilliant for this!

If this was useful, please let me know.