Suppose you read a post on someone else's blog, Blog-A say, and you think there is relevant content (posts and comments) on your site, Blog-B.
It would be helpful if readers of Blog-A could see the post and comments on your site Blog-B. That may or may not be possible. There are two ways of doing this – pingback and trackback. This article deals with trackback – see pingback.html in the same directory for 'Howto Pingback'.
The difference between pingback and trackback is that what is shown on the remote site. With pingback readers of Blog-A, see a link to your site, Blog-B. With trackback your post on Blog-B is reproduced as a comment on Blog-A, and since it is possible to spoof the source address, readers of Blog-A may be misled as to who really posted the comment. With pingback spoofing the source just links to a different site (possibly non-existent).
It will be possible if
The administrator of site Blog-A has enabled trackback for the site, and
The administrator of site Blog-A has enabled trackback for the post, and
You are using a theme on Blog-B that has code to display trackback options to the screen.
| a. Settings-Privacy | Check the box | "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and archivers." |
| Save changes. | ||
| b. Settings-Writing | Check the boxes | "Enable the Atom Publishing Protocol." |
| "Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols." | ||
| Save changes. |
Visit Blog-A, read the relevant post, and find the trackback URL. This may be difficult for there is no standard way of presenting it. Different themes put it in different places on the screen and call it by different names. Copy the link to your clipboard. Typically the link will be something like
'http://www.someone_elses_domain.co.uk/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=123'
| Tip: | If the remote site is a wordpress powered site, the simplest way to get the trackback URL is to copy it from the browser address bar when viewing the post and then add "wp-trackback.php" between "/blog/" and "?p=". |
Visit your own site, Blog-B, and edit the post you wish to have accessible from Blog-A. You should paste the trackback URL from the previous step (Blog-A's trackback URL) into the 'Send trackbacks to' field.
Note the difference between
trackbacks and pingbacks:-
Trackback urls go in the 'Send trackbacks to' box;
Pingback permalinks are included in the text of the post inside
tags (use the HTML tab when editing).
The trackback url and the pingback permalink are usually different for the same post.
If you put the trackback url in the post text or the pingback permalink in the
'Send trackbacks to' box nothing will happen.
Fill in the 'Excerpt' field with a taster of what is in your post. This is what will be shown on the remote blog (Blog-A).
Update the post.
It may happen almost immediately or there may be a delay before the taster and a link to the post on your blog (Blog-B) appears on the other blog (Blog-A). Most site administrators require contributions to their blog to be moderated before publishing, particularly in the case of trackbacks which could contain offensive material or links to undesirable sites.
The remote administrator has not configured his site correctly – the correct permissions and correct use of caching are important.
You have not used the correct trackback URI.
(Note this is usually different from the permalink used for
pingbacks,
e.g. trackback URI is
“http://www.someone_elses_domain.co.uk/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=123”
while pingback permalink is
“http://www.someone_elses_domain.co.uk/blog/?p=123”).
The data is waiting for moderation.
A spam catcher has discarded it.
You have not configured you own site correctly to send the trackback data.
The remote site may be using a different blog publishing protocol from Wordpress. You may have to go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Writing and tick the box Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols. (Wordpress is already set by default) and/or tick the box Enable the Atom Publishing Protocol
Many Blog sites do not enable trackback because of the problem with 'Comment Spam'. If you get a spam problem (with or without trackback) try using akismet. The askimet module is already installed. You just need to enable and configure it.
For further help on trackback see WordPress Trackback Tutorial - by Teli Adlam