glog

I will keep it short and simple, because just about everything else I have read on the subject is long and confusing….

What are Trackbacks?

A simple example of a Trackback is if you look at the bottom of this WordPress blog entry, near the comments section, you will see a “Trackback” link. The picture below shows you where to find the Trackback in the default Wordpress theme.

Now if you go to the GlowHost Forums and submit a post (using the advanced editor, not the quick reply) you will see a text field where you can enter in the Trackback URL

I’ve copied the Trackback URL from this blog entry into the advanced editor’s “Trackback” text field, and submited my post…..more on this below.

What did I just do?
I notified the administrator of this blog that my post on the forum is linking this blog posting, and should the administrator of this blog decide to show my Trackback, my forum post will appear as a comment on the bottom of this page. It is a handy way to add a comment to a blog article from a forum or other site that supports Trackbacks.

How does it work?
The forum will send a notification to the blog scripts, that the blog has been referenced from the remote website (AKA the Forums) It knows to notify this blog because I took the time to specify a Trackback URL in my post.

Why would I want to do this?
For a couple of reasons. One reason is to syndicate my thoughts, comments, ideas across multiple websites. Another reason is, to gain a link from this blog back to the forums. The last example would be a good tool for site owners who would like to develop some inbound links to their forums or blog.

Does this only work between forums and blogs?
No. It can work between blogs and other blogs, or from forums to other forums, and any other site or script that supports Trackbacks. The idea here was to show you how two completely different systems, can work in unison with each other.

What are Pingbacks?
Pingbacks are essentially the same concept as Trackback, except they are much simpler. In a Pingback, all that I would do in the forum post, is link to this blog post’s “Permalink” or Permanent Link. The Permalink can be found by hovering your mouse over the title of this blog entry for a second or two. You will see some alt text (or title text) that indicates that the text you are hovering over is this blog post’s Permalink.

The forums also have a Permalink option as indicated in the figure below.

As an example, I am going to link a forum post’s Permalink HERE.

What did I do?
If you look at the very bottom of the forum thread at the link immediately above, you will see a Pingback from this blog. This is a direct result of me putting that simple Permalink above, right in the content this post. No Trackback was needed. Essentially, the forum is now linking back to this blog because the blog referenced it using a simple link. The forum administrator approved the Pingback, so now it is visible at the bottom of the forum thread. It is a little bit simpler than using aTrackback because it is one less step to perform what is basically the same operation. Here is a pic of what it did to the forums. This appears at the very bottom of the thread.

What is the purpose of a Permalink?
A Permalink has several purposes. One as mentioned above, is for Pingback notifications. The other is so that you have a consistent link to a specific article of interest. For example, in many blogging softwares, if you simply copy the URL in the address bar, or bookmark it, when you return sometime in the future, the article you were trying to view may have been moved to the bottom of the page, or archived because new blog entires have been added since your last visit. The Permalink will always direct your browser to the desired article no matter how many updates have been made to the blog since your last visit. Permalink works in the same way on websites. When the link is created it will (well, it *SHOULD*) always link to the desired article.

Good Luck!
If you want to try it out, spread the word about this blog and use the Trackback link in this post on your blog, forum post, or other favorite script that supports Trackbacks.

If your software supports Pingbacks, feel free to link to the permalink found in the forum thread above.