What the Heck is Trackback?

That 'trackback' entry below has some folk puzzled.

"I've heard of it, but - in plain English - what is it?" seems to be the common response.

I'm no expert, but this note answers the questions I had extreme difficulty finding answers to among all the technobabble percolating around the Net.

See if it helps you.

Trackbacks seem to be a way of linking relevant blog content around the web. In doing so, they provide links between the sites involved (ie one of the keys we marketers are looking for).

To use it, you need a trackback service. Some blogging software/services include it as standard. If you're using Blogger (or about 20 other free blogging services) you'll have to join a separate trackback service. One free one is http://www.HaloScan.com (It's dead simple - they even automate it for Blogger.)

Once your blog is trackback enabled, you've got the "Hey, link to me!" sign flashing.

Now, say you write something on your blog. I come across it, find it relevant to my site, so write a post about it on my blog - including a direct link to your blog so my readers can find it.

I then go to HaloScan and insert the heading and a few lines of my blog post. I then get the trackback link off your blog and add it to this HaloScan entry.

I click a button, and it links the two blogs by adding my heading and summary to your blog.

Result: we both have fresh content, and we both have incoming links.

Some services have all this built in, so this is a tedious way of doing it. But it seems to work. Beats the heck out of 'traditional' link exchanging.

One warning though - in seeking relevant blogs to test this with, I came across one that had been spammed. The site was about dogs, but there were hundreds of trackback entries about viagra, college and the usual suspects.

So check your blogging service settings to see whether there is a way of requiring posters to register, or to notify you when someone does trackback - that way you can periodically check for spam and relevance.

You might also enjoy 3 videos Thomas Pierce/Jim Edwards have here.

Enjoy!