When I first started this blog, it took me almost 3 months to figure out what exactly a trackback was. And now, oddly enough, I have been asked three or four times in the past couple weeks to explain the concept and each time I forget to include something. So, I figured I would just explain the basics of what they are and how to use them by walking through the best example I have recently came across, Mitch Joel’s podcast “Six Pixels of Separation” and one of the topics was about what is better Comments or Trackbacks. The discussion started because the blog of marketing god - Seth Godin only allows trackbacks.

Just like my case in past, most people don’t quite understand how trackbacks work and why they are useful for a blog. In this Blog, we’re going to go over trackbacks—what they are, how they work and how to get more trackbacks. After you’ve read this, you’ll know practically everything there is to know about trackbacks.

What are Trackbacks?

The concept of trackbacks is a bit hard to explain. So we’ll use an example to explain it in the best way possible. OK, say you see a great blog post on another person’s blog and want to link to it on your blog. You could do this the old-fashioned way by manually putting a link on your site to that blog. However, if you do it this way, the person whose blog post you are linking to won’t know that you are linking to them unless you tell them.

This is where trackbacks come in. A trackback is a program that will notify the owner of a blog when one of their posts has been linked to at another blog. Now isn’t that simple?

How do Trackbacks work????

Suppose you pen down a blog on File Sharing Applications (‘A’) and intend to share it on web. You come across another related article on a famous blog site(‘B’). To drive in more readers to your new blog and make it more visible, there is no better way than by using ‘Trackbacks’.

Let me explain you how can you link your new blog to other blogs on popular sites.

Following are the ‘mandatory’ requirements for a Successful Trackback:

1. Your site must be able to send Trackback Pings to the Referred (Source) Blog site containing entry ‘B’ (To B’s Trackback Ping Url).
2. Your Blog entry ‘A’ must have a Permanent Link to the source blog entry ‘B’ within your text
3. Following are the sample texts which represent a reference/link to some source Blog entries inside a referring Blog (your blog in this case):

- click here to visit the source entry

- can be placed under Other Related Entries
- can be placed under Similar Posts to Read

The source Blog site must be able to receive and respond to Trackback Pings

Each time you send a ping to a blog’s Ping URL, for example http://www.bhopu.com/trackback/80 there is a page associated to that website which extracts the information you must send along with your ping i.e your Blog’s Permanent Link on your site and other parameters like your entry’s title, and Excerpt, etc which are optional.

Now I’m sure most of you must be wondering what is a Ping URL, where can your trace it and what does ‘80’ signify here in this URL mentioned above.

Well ‘80’ is the BlogID (on source site) of the blog you want your new blog to link to. And this link “http://www.bhopu.com/trackback/80” tells Bhopu.com that you want to trackback to their Blog with ID=80.

Explaining further how to trace the ping URL, there are a couple of ways you can do it.

A Ping Url is always displayed below a Blog entry (with Trackbacks) –

1. It can be visible as text next to ‘Trackback Url to a blog’ heading just like the example mentioned below:

Ping URL on Mashable:

2. You can copy this Ping URL by clicking on the trackback just as shown in the image below

I hope I have been able to give you all a clear picture of the all building blocks for a Trackback system, it is going to be easier for you now to understand how Trackback functions:

• You send a ping containing your entry’s permalink to B’s Ping Url
• Blog ‘B’s Trackback system checks for B’s permalink in your entry (check for genuine trackback),
• If found, they store your entry’s link in their Database and include a Link back to your post in the References/Trackbacks section below their Blog Entry. This will redirect some of their traffic to your Blogs

How can you increase the number of Trackbacks you get?

The easiest and best way to increase trackbacks is to frequently post AND PING others about them. If you post frequently (2-3 times a week), people will have quite a few posts that they can trackback. However, it is important to make sure that your posts are of a good quality. Quality blog posts are those that people can relate to and are easy to read. If you post a long boring rant, people probably won’t want to trackback to that. But if you post a decent sized rant that is entertaining (and that people are likely to agree with), you’ll get more readers and possibly more trackbacks.

Trackbacks are a wonderful thing for every blog. You potentially gain more visitors plus you are also able trace your blog’s visibility, isn’t this a win-win situation for you?