Linkbacks, Trackbacks, and Pingbacks, OH MY!!

When you first start blogging, internet terms can get very confusing. One area that confused me when I first started internet marketing was linkbacks. I did not understand what a linkback was and how pingbacks and trackbacks were associated with linkbacks.

According to Wikipedia here are the definitions for all three:

A linkback is a method for Web authors to obtain notifications when other authors link to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. The three methods (Refback, Trackback, and Pingback) differ in how they accomplish this task.

Any of the four terms — Linkback, Trackback, Pingback, or (rarely) Refback — might also refer colloquially to items within a section upon the linked page that display the received notifications, usually along with a reciprocal link; Trackback is used most often for this purpose. Also, the word Trackback is often used colloquially to mean any kind of Linkback.

A trackback is one of three types of linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking, and so referring, to their articles. Some weblog software programs, such as WordPress, CuteNewsRU, Movable Type, Typo, Telligent Community and Kentico CMS, support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published. The term is used colloquially for any kind of linkback.

A pingback is one of three types of linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. Some weblog software, such as Movable Type, WordPress and Telligent Community, support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published.

Essentially, a pingback is an XML-RPC request (not to be confused with an ICMP ping) sent from Site A to Site B. However, it also requires a hyperlink. When Site B receives the notification signal, it automatically goes back to Site A checking for the existence of a live incoming link. If that link exists, the pingback is recorded successfully. This makes pingbacks less prone to spam than trackbacks. Pingback-enabled resources must either use an X-Pingback header or contain a element to the XML-RPC script.

As you can see even the definitions can be a bit confusing. So here is the easiest summary I could create:

A linkback is a name for when any individual links back to one of your articles on your site or blog.

A trackback is a form of linkback that inform site A that site B linked to an article of site A’s. It usually contains the title site B’s post, site B’s name, and a link back to site B’s post.

A pingback sent from site B to inform site A that it linked to its post usually only contains a hyperlink back to site B’s post. In theory, pingbacks are supposed to cut down on spam.

These trackbacks or pingbacks show up in the form of a comment on your site. You can go to the original site to check to make sure it is linking to your post and is not spam.

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Tags: what is a backlink, what is a pingback, what is a trackback