Pingback and Trackback: Comment Communication between blogs
Two terms— Pingback and Trackback are no less important than the other factors usually promising WordPressers inquire into. These are part of comment chapter of your entire blogging story. Frankly, Pingback and Trackback are the two ways of communication between blogs via comment.
For the sake of blogging, you’re to learn things you think are necessary for your blog.
Again, you’re also to learn things you’ll find unnecessary for your blog after a full-day reading.
Whatever the case, Pingback and Trackback are the blogging facts that must deserve being included in your reading list. If you get confused of Pingback and trackback and are looking for clarification, you are in the right place.
So, let’s travel the spot—
Why Pingback and Trackback story
QUESTION: I’m not sure why and how are Pingback and Trackback a countable issue.
ANSWER: If you’re a one who just landed the WordPress planet and struggling forcefully to see the face of one or two traffic, this might be a common phenomenon that one or two Pingback comments appears at the top of your comment list awaiting for moderation. Have a look at the screenshot below—
This may occur for two reasons—
- Someone out of evil-curiosity has trapped a link to any of your post from his/her site/blog.
- You yourself did this misdeed unknowingly.
In this situation, you might be stuck up and be at a loss what to do when two questions may cross through your mind—
- What to do! Here is no commenting sentence or word. Should I approve it or drop it to Spam folder or Trash bin.
- If I approve this; Will this leave positive or negative impact on my blog.
You start hunting throughout Internet to reveal its secret.
What is Pingback and Trackback?
QUESTION: O really countable fact! Then what is actually this Pingback?
ANSWER: Easily speaking, when somebody from his/her blog build a link to any of your blog posts, a notification appears at the top of comment list of your dashboard saying Pingback and waits for moderation. This happens only when both the associated sites have Pingback and Trackback enabled. see screenshot below—
Contextually, you’ll find this Pingback and Trackback setting here—
Setting→ Discussion→ Default article settings
QUESTION: I just started my blog and it has no possibility of being pingbacked frequently. Yet why do I see so many Pingback comments in comment list?
ANSWER: This is the issue of Self-ping as we mentioned above. You yourself Pingback to other posts when you create internal link between own posts. There are reasons for self-ping and you can stop self-ping both for individual post and entire site.
To stop Self-Ping, check out How to disable Self-ping.
QUESTION: What happens when I approve a Pingback comment?
ANSWER: This will display as a comment as usual with other comments of your blog creating a link to the blog post where the Pingback came from.
QUESTION: I want to get more clarified. Please set an example.
ANSWER: Sure! To understand the process well, follow the following steps
- Your blog is foodvalue.com. You published a touching post titled ‘Health benefits of sweet potato’.
- Zara’s’ blog is foodandhealth.com. Zara extremely likes your post ‘Health benefits of sweet potato’. As both the sites are of the same interest, Zara likes that her readers also enjoy the essence of your post. She also expects that her blog get a quality backlink from your site foodvalue.com.
- She creates a link from foodandhealth.com to foodvalue.com.
- A Pingback notification appeared in your comment section.
- You approved the comment.
- It displayed in your foodvalue.com. site showing a link to foodandhealth.com.
QUESTION: Everything OK.? Then what is my benefit approving such a comment. In other word, tell why or why not should I approve such a link.
ANSWER: Simply your benefit is that you’re getting a back-link from other site which may be essential if that site is a influential one. The other side of the coin is that you’re also giving a back-link to other site in which you are supposed to be economic.
The simple math is that you should approve such a comment if that came from a site which is more authoritative in your niche than yours. But in practice, this TOOL is frequently misused or used as a equipment of comment spamming. Spammers usually create this kind of link from non-important site for achieving quick back-link out of your site to rank higher in SE.
QUESTION: What about Trackback?
ANSWER: Trackback which was originally developed by SixApart, is also communication system between blogs. But there are obvious difference between them. Take a careful look at their distinctive characteristics below—
| PINGBACK | TRACKBACK |
| The process of Pingback is automatic. While creating a link to other blog Pingback appears there. | Trackback is manual process. A Trackback URL from other site is to be set in the Send Trackback module located below a post or page editor. |
| In Pingback only the word ‘Pingback’ is sent to other blog. | In Trackback, usually an excerpt is sent there. |
| It is usual and convenient to send comment between same blog platforms such as WordPress to WordPress. | It is usually useful and convenient to communicate between different blog platforms. |
| URL from other blog post is directly used as Pingback URL such as www.example.com | Trackback URL is followed by /trackback extension such as www.example.com/trackabck. |
QUESTION: Almost clear, Please, could you pose an example in Trackback case also as you did for Pingback?
ANSWER: With pleasure! Below is the easy-going understandable process of Trackback communication between blogs—
- Your blog is NETPLANTER. You published a post titled ‘What is Domain Name: How knowledge of Domain Name can uplift your site-building efforts’.
- Eewana’s blog is SCHOOL OF GRAMMAR. Eewana loves your post about Passive Voice. She like that her readers also enjoy your post. She also expects that her blog will get a quality backlink from your site NETPLANTER.
- She collects Trackback URL from your NETPLANTER post about Domain Name.
- She gets back to her site SCHOOL OF GRAMMAR and scroll down to the post editor of the post about Passive Voice.
- She inputs the Trackback URL of your site in the Send Trackback box as shown below and updated the post.
- This showed as notification in the top of your comment list as shown in screenshot below. Note that Excerpt is shown below from her Passive Voice post with blog title.
- If you approve this Trackback comment, this will show in your NETPLANTER post comment with other comment with a Backlink to SCHOOL OF GRAMMAR as shown below—
QUESTION: Then what is my benefits here approving such a comment notification?
ANSWER: As a matter of fact,this words are applicable for both Pingback and Trackback that you can approve such Pingback and Trackback comment if you detect they are from legit sources and not spam and at least those sites are not lower graded than yours. In this case, it is positive that you got a number of valued backlinks without efforts. Also if those sites don’t have Dofollow disabled, you can get ‘link juice‘ from them carrying SEO importance. All these are probable benefits that may enrich your site to much extent.
On the other hand, if you find these inbound links are from black source or spammers or from auto RSS Feeds blog, mark them as Spam or throw into Trash. Experience shows that Pingback and Trackback have turned into a powerful equipment in the black world of Comment Spamming.
This is the ending point of the post with problems that starts with a post-link with solution. So read up it right now.
Hope friends, you enjoyed this post. If my assumption is based on fact and you get even a slight flash of light of knowledge of Pingback and Trackback, feel free to inform me through COMMENT. Also claim sharing with your dear ones.
