I have only been blogging for about a year so I am still quite new to it.  One of the things that had me confused was the whole issue of Trackbacks and Pingbacks.  I’m not going into the science behind them and which one is better and why.  There are plenty of places that discuss all that.

As a new blogger, I really just wanted to know what it was and what to do with it.  Basically, Trackbacks and Pingbacks are a way for blogs to talk to each other.  If you are on someone’s blog and like what they post.  You might want to refer to it on your own site with an active link.  When you do, if that other blog is a WordPress Blog, your blog will ping that blog and let it know that you posted something about them.  You don’t have to do anything.  It’s just one WordPress blog talking to another one and that is called a pingback.  It’s kind of a courtesy thing and lets you know someone is linking to you and that is a very good thing.

Now, what if the other blog is not a WordPress blog?  In that case, on the page where you create your blog post, there is a spot called Trackback.  You can put the other blog’s internet address in that spot and when you publish your post, your blog will contact them and let them know.  It’s not automatic like the pingback because they have a different system.

To see it in action, if you look at my post about Squidoo being more than just webpages, you will see where I referenced Potpiegirl’s blog.  If you click on that link and go to her site, you can look toward the bottom of the page and see where she has some Trackbacks listed.  This blog should be on the list.

Why is this important?  First of all, it’s nice to know that someone liked what you posted enough to reference it.  In the process, you are getting links back to your blog (backlinks) and when Google figures out what page rank they want to give you, they take those links into account.