What Is A Trackback? How To Get More Free Traffic To A Blog

According to Wikipedia a blog trackback is defined as follows

“A trackback is an acknowledgment. This acknowledgment is sent via a network signal (ping) from the originating site to the receiving site. The receptor often publishes a link back to the originator indicating its worthiness. Trackback requires both sites to be trackback-enabled in order to establish this communication. Trackbacks are used primarily to facilitate communication between blogs; if a blogger writes a new entry commenting on, or referring to, an entry found at another blog, and both blogging tools support the TrackBack protocol, then the commenting blogger can notify the other blog with a “TrackBack ping”; the receiving blog will typically display summaries of, and links to, all the commenting entries below the original entry. This allows for conversations spanning several blogs that readers can easily follow.”

A track back is an acknowledgment. This acknowledgment is sent via a network signal (ping) from the originating site to the receiving site. The receptor often publishes a link back to the originator indicating its worthiness. Trackback requires both sites to be trackback-enabled in order to establish this communication.

Track backs are used primarily to facilitate communication between blogs; if a blogger writes a new entry commenting on, or referring to, an entry found at another blog, and both blogging tools support the TrackBack protocol, then the commenting blogger can notify the other blog with a “TrackBack ping”; the receiving blog will typically display summaries of, and links to, all the commenting entries below the original entry. This allows for conversations spanning several blogs that readers can easily follow.

It is difficult to explain unless you set it up on your own blog and see how it works. A Trackbacks is a feature that is available on most blogging platforms. Often trackbacks that are sent do not show on blogs for one of two reasons. Many owners of blogs choose to keep the feature switched off. Others will leave the feature switched on but they will then manually approve each Trackback before it will appear live on their blog.

TrackBacks On Different Blog Platforms

The way that Trackbacks are handled by different blogging platforms differs. Trackbacks that are on the same platform or use the same protocol will attempt to trackback automatically. For example, WordPress blogs tracking other wordpress blogs. Then as long as long as there is a link to the other blog post your blog will try to establish a trackback or pingback.

How To Send A Trackback

The process of adding a trackback URI into a blog post that you have created is something that has to be done manually. A URI is a Uniform Resource Identifier – in other words a link. The location of the Trackback URI is usually at the end of the blog and is usually identified as something like “Trackback URI”.

When setting up a WordPress Trackback in each blog post the Trackback URI needs to be copied in to trackback input box that can be found at the end of the WordPress blog post. When the post is published a Trackback will then be sent from the WordPress blog post. The wordpress blog that just published the blog post in the above will also register when it receives a Trackback from the other blog once the post is published.

When posting Trackbacks it is important to make sure that there is sufficient content on your site before sending out Trackbacks. If you send out Track Backs when there isn’t much content will result in people coming to your site but not staying for long or bookmarking your site and you will probably never see them again.

Getting More Traffic With Trackbacks

It is possible to get traffic from Trackbacks if you track someone else’s blog. This is done by leaving a link that points back to your blog. The traffic that results may come as a result of someone then clicking the link to your blog when they read the page that the post and the link to your site is on. Sometimes the pages may not have a “nofollow” tag in which case you web site will also receive the benefit of some of the Page Rank (PR).

By Trackbacking to other blogs you will also get Trackbacks to your blog which will usually result in more traffic to your blog. Being a recipient of a Trackback is also a good thing because it means that another blog owner has read your blog and they have decided it is good enough to include in their blog. Therefore there is a high possibility that if they Trackbacked your blog that they also made a link to your site as well. Trackbacks are a great way of showing social proof of the fact that other people are reading and appreciating your blog.

Sending Trackbacks To Get More Traffic

Another benefit of Trackbacks is that they create awareness with other bloggers. By posting a trackback it is very probable that the owner of the blog that it is posted on will click the link to have a look at your blog. If they like what they see they may subscribe to your blog and hopefully trackback your site and may even mention your blog in a future post on theirs.

Very popular blogs are constantly getting trackbacks all of the time so it is unlikely that you will be noticed by them if you trackback them because they receive many such requests every day. Care should be taken in who you choose to trackback with if you are trying to build traffic with it to ensure that you don’t waste your time.

When you receive a Trackback to your blog it is always recommended that you check the site that has originated from. By doing this you will be able to determine if the request is Trackback spam which is easy to spot because there content will not be original but republished from other blogs. When you get Trackback spam it is a good idea to delete it and only accept Trackback from real sites that have original content.

Trackbacks can be a useful way of helping to build traffic to a blog if used intelligently and with care.