TRACKBACK IS THE BLOGGING WAY!
 By Bud Wiser

 I decided to write this article on legitimate ways to TrackBack because I’m finding that there are still a lot of webmasters who do not   understand what TrackBack is, or how to use it. Unlike my previous post about Track Back Spam, this one deals entirely on  legitimate ways to use trackback, and explains it a little better for those who may want to explore one of the most powerful aspects of  blogging!

What Is Trackback?

The official Wikipedia definition is this,

” TrackBack is a system implemented by many blogging tools, including Movable Type, WordPress and Nucleus, that allows a blogger to see who has seen the original post and has written another entry concerning it. The system works by sending a ‘ping’ between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert. TrackBack typically appears below a blog entry and shows a summary of what has been written on the target blog, together with a URL and the name of the blog. The specification for TrackBack and its implementation were developed by Six Apart, creators of the MovableType weblog and content management system. “

The official Bud Wiser definition is this,

“It’s a perfect way to create natural legitimate link exchanges that are of the highest value! You are sending the blog you have referenced on your blog notice that your blog contains additional information directly related to their post you are trackbacking! This notice benefits every one including the readership of both blog posts! People can instantly continue reading from the provided TB link!”

Why Trackback Instead of Making a Comment?

Comments are simply people leaving comments about the article they just read, they may or may not have related links included. Comments is intended for the reader to sound off on what they just read. A TB on the other hand is indicating sources for continual reading! These are links to other blogs have either commented about this article on their blog, or provided additional information!

Comments Still Important!

Before you conclude that comments is not important, think again! Every blog should feature comments! This gives every one a chance to participate in a discussion about your posts! Comments is another very important feature with blogging! To remove comments is to remove a major part of blogging!

Where Can TB Found?

Trackback is found on the same page as the comments and usually appears before the actual comments begin. A TB is a little snippet from your blog article with a hotlink back to it. One can quickly see a small portion of your article post, and if they want to click on it to read the rest! Your blog must have Trackback and comments enabled, and have a comment page to go to.

How To Trackback

If you are using Wordpress, and have TB enabled, all you have to do is provide a link to another blog post in your post. Wordpress will try to find a TB URL if there is one on that page and automatically send a TB ping to it. If the other blog has TB enabled it will either accept the TB right away, or email the webmaster for approval before it is accepted.

You can also fill in the TB URL manually in WP and most third party editors. The reason you would do this is that auto discover does not always find a TB url, and you may want to send TB’s to more then one blog. For example if you just wrote a killer article, you would of course send TB to any every articles on other blogs you reference to, but you may also want to send a TB to related blog articles you feel may be interested in this article if it’s directly related to one of their articles!

Is This Spam?

In no way is anything I just described as spam, and no webmaster would consider it spam if your TB is directly related to the post you are TBing, adds quality and relevance to their blog! In fact, those receiving the TB just got a high quality link exchange with no effort at all!

Of course there are ways to exploit TB, and TB spam is covered on another article I wrote. Let me just say this, TB spam is short term. Useful only for traffic, or getting a new site indexed. Most sites will either reject your TB and it will never see the light of day, or remove it quickly. TB spammers know this and are playing a numbers game. They score best on dead blogs. Dead blogs have been abandon, or rarely updated. So TB spam stays there indefinitely. Legitimate TB is 100% better and more effective then TB spam!

What Is The Difference Between Legitimate Trackback And Trackback Spam?

With Legitimate TB, you are contributing additional information and service that benefits every one. With TB spam, you are not contributing any thing at all, instead you are simply taking free one way links for your own benefit.

How To Prevent Getting Trackback Spam

Take it from a spammer, it’s easy to prevent TB spam! Which is why I fond all the paranoia and TB spam noise so amusing! TB spam is a problem only if you let it be a problem! The single most effect way to eliminate TB spam is to be notified of any TB by email and approve them before they get posted! This will work out just fine for the vast majority of webmasters. However if your blog gets a lot of traffic, you can start getting a lot of TB’s, both legitimate and spam. So you won’t want to deal with a lot of extra email! In which case not to worry, there are many very effective anti-spam plugins available to fight TB spam!

Don’t be fooled by the many reports that TB spam is out of control. Those reports would have you believe that TB is in epidemic proportions! And so wide spread that every one and their mother is TB spamming. Simply not that case at all. Yes there is a lot of TB spam out there, but no where near as much as these anti-spam fanatics believe there is. They base this misconception on personal experience. They may be targeted by several spammers, and therefore they assume every one must be. They add to the confusion by posting about it. Then another person posts about it, and another. Most of those reporting this have been out spoken spam critics, so naturally they have been targeted by some spammers. I’m sure some have legitimate reports who have not been known as anti-spam critics.

How Do I work In Trackback?

I suggest you get a RSS Reader, if you do not already have one! I love using FeedDemon! I know, FireFox has a RSS Reader plugin, just try FeedDemon! What I do is add my favorite blogs I enjoy visiting to my watch list. I am alerted when ever they make a new post. Feed Demon comes with a lot of really good RSS feeds built right in! This is how I get ideas about things to write about when I run out of my own ideas. By keeping up with the latest news and posts from my favorite blogs, I never run out of ideas! I can also find related quality sites to trackback this way.

You also want to write about unique subjects of your own that others will want to reference to. It’s not all about TBing out, you also want TB’s to you! Here quality is more important then quantity! You are using one of the most powerful features on blogging! I am totally amazed that so many people are still clueless about Trackback! I suspect that out anti-spam fanatics have painted a bad picture of TB, and many dismiss it quickly as just another way to spam. We need to remember what TrackBack was intended for! It’s benefits far out weigh any form of abuse!

How Can I Write About Legitimate Trackback AND Trackback Spam?

Some of you may find it ironic that a spammer like me, who has written a lot about how to effectively spam, can also write about legitimate TB techniques. Well it’s like this. I report about what I know. I leave the moral and ethical standards and debates up to each person. I feel you have been preached to enough already about the evils of spam. You deserve to know both sides of the story. Personally, I rarely ever TB spam. And you may also be surprised to know that I don’t even consider myself a black hatter or white hatter! I am a marketer plain and simple. I do what ever works best. I find legitimate TB works the best! TB spam is effective for short term, but it’s actually more work then legitimate TB! Still I want you to know how to do both!

Beware of omeprazole side effects.

As for my ethics, of course I have ethics . I would never spam sites I respect, or like, or webmaster’s I know. I would love to have a program that hunts down all dead blogs and spam the crap out of them! And I have no sympathy for anti-spam fanatics or self proclaimed Internet Watch Dogs that get the crap spammed out of them. In fact I love hearing about it! According to these people, spammers are stupid, and lazy. They have absolutely no clue on spamming or spammers! Yes I have morals and ethics, but I don’t try to shove them down other peoples throats! I don’t whine and bitch every time I get spammed. I can spam and also provide quality unique content! They seem to think in black and white only. While most spammers I know, me included, have been online for a long time. We know more then they think we know, and we work harder then most of them!

Conclusion

Trackback is a great blogging asset! In a post Jaggar SEO world where we are searching for better ways to create natural links that weigh the most, the best source is under our nose and ignored by most! The marketing potential for Trackback is also extremely powerful! Combined with syndication through RSS Aggregators and Feed services like FeedBurner, you are expanding your blogs readership, contributing quality information, and building quality links! Rarely will you find a albino white seo technique that is more effective then most black hat techniques! Trackback is what blogging is all about! You chose to blog because you seen the great SEO and marketing potential in it, don’t remove Trackback and Comments! To do so would be moving backwards!

Related Posts: Syndicate Your RSS Feeds, Using Google Blog Search For Trackbacks!, Social Bookmarks, How to Trackback Spam Step By Step!

Posted by Administrator on Monday, January 23rd, 2006 at 11:00 am.