Trackbacks and Pingbacks in WordPress are.
What is a Trackback?
Trackbacks give bloggers the ability to communicate between websites. Its almost like one person saying to another “This is something you may be interested in”. So for example:
– We write a post on our blog.
– You want to comment on our 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 blog and send a trackback to our blog post.
– We will receive your trackback, and choose to display it as a comment or not. The comment display will be a title, excerpt and a link to your blog post.
What is a Pingback?
Pingbacks give softwares the ability communicate between websites. Its almost like remote comments.
– We write a post on our blog.
– You write a post on your blog mentioning/linking to our article.
– Your blogging software will automatically send us a pingback.
– Our blogging software will receive the pingback. It will then automatically go to your blog to confirm that the pingback originates there (the link is present).
– Then we will have the ability to display your pingback as our comment. This will solely be a link to your site.
Pingbacks also work within your site. So if one of your posts link to another post, then your WordPress will send a self-ping. This can get really annoying.
What is the difference between Trackbacks and Pingbacks?
– Trackbacks are manual whereas Pingbacks are automatic.
– Pingbacks do not send any content. In trackbacks an excerpt of the content is sent.
