WordPress trackbacks and pingbacks are methods for alerting other blogs that you have linked to them.
Pingbacks are automated and don’t send any content. Pingbacks give blogs the ability to communicate through an automated system when you link to another blog post where pingbacks are enabled. Since pingbacks are created by having external links on another person’s blog, they are one of the best ways to improve your SEO.
Want to create a pingback? You just link to another blog post and if that post has pingbacks enabled, the blog owner will see a pingback appear in their comments section that they can approve it or not.
You can also disable pingbacks on individual posts via the Discussion metabox when adding a new or editing a post. It will say “Allow pingbacks & trackbacks”. You can uncheck it.
How do pingbacks work in WordPress.:
- Find a reference post that you want to add a link to on your blog.
- Write a post on your blog mentioning and linking to the reference post in your article and publish it.
- WordPress will automatically send the reference post blog platform a pingback.
- Your pingback will automatically go to the reference blog to confirm that the pingback originates there and if the link is present.
- The reference blog will then have the ability to display your pingback as a comment or not.
Trackbacks are not automatic and must be created manually, and send an excerpt of the content.
To send a trackback you will have to add the trackback URI from the other blog post to the Send Trackbacks module in your blog post before you publish it. Go to the post on the blog and look for the Trackback URI. The trackback URI will end with “/trackback/” in a WordPress.
How do trackbacks work in WordPress:
- Write a post on your blog.
- You want to comment on the recipient’s post, but you want your own readers to see what you have to say and able to comment on it.
- You will then write a post on your own website and send a trackback to the recipient’s post. (The default settings for WordPress is do not allow you to send manual trackbacks while writing a blog post,).
- The recipient receives your trackback and chooses to display it as a comment or not. The comment display will be a title, excerpt, and a link to your post.
The biggest issue with trackbacks or pingbacks is that they can be used to send some or even large amounts of spam. Trackbacks can be sent manually and pingbacks can be automatically sent to any site. So spammers can use them to get their links posted on as much content as possible if they are approved. It can also cause you to spend a lot of time moderating the comments.
Note, if you don’t see the discussion metabox, make sure that it’s enabled in your “Screen Options”. Screen Options is a drop-down menu button located on the top right corner in your WordPress admin area.
