WordPress Pingback and Trackback

[poldopunk]

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i know many people are using wordpress here as their blogs, but there is one feature that i would like to learn how to use. its the Pingbackand Trackback feature. Although i've read the wordpress documentation on wordpress.org, it only explains what it does BUT doesn't give information on how to use it. i'm actually following vern's blog and i would like to make use of this feature for my blog. anyone here who can help me out explain them in layman's terms? i would greatly appreciate it.

[vern]

If you write something about a subject someone has to written about already, you can send them a pingback or trackback which simply tells their blog that you have referenced them. Some systems allow you to show trackbacks of remote hosts as comments. This is all done using a protocol. XMLRPC I believe although I could be wrong.

[poldopunk]

how do you use it? i have found a tutorial here. the author talks about excerpts from my entry to the reference blog, can you help me out with this thing? i tried something on my blog by writing a post and then added the trackback uri on the trackback options in the admin panel, but i didn't find anything unusual or new or something to look forward to just like how the author of the tutorial said.

errr, am confused.

[vern]

If you trackback to a URL ... say i wrote a post located here http://ribbed.us/blabla/bla/blaa. If you want to trackback to that URL, just paste it in the trackback section when writing a post. Once posted, you don't notice anything special, your blog automatically contacts the URL you referrenced and tells it that it has been referenced. The software on ribbed.us now knows that you have given it a trackback and it can decide what to do with it. Most blogs don't care. Some blogs automatically get a snippet of your post and post it in the comments section automatically.

[poldopunk]

thanks, now i understand, i was thinking about writing something about your latest post on your blog and i want to send a trackback that's why i posted here about it.

is it alright to say that the trackback feature is a way to give credit to the original author? and what about pingbacks? can you explain in layman's terms what it is?

[vern]

Looks like you got trackback figured out. Pingback is pretty much the same as trackback. Pings though are different. When you make a new post, Wordpress contacts a site that "pings" directories. What that does is notify directories and search engines that you have updated your blog and they should crawl it. Have a look at your access logs, everytime you post, you will most likely get a visit by a Technorati.com robot. It notifies Technorati as well as many other directories and search engines.

[poldopunk]

thanks for your help, i really appreciate it. i've been using pings and and yet i didn't know it was there. how embarassing. anyway, thank you, thank you and thank you.