If you’re a WordPress user you may have noticed a new option “Allow Trackbacks & Pingbacks” for your blog posts. You may be wondering “What does that mean and how will it impact my SEO”? Let’s take a look.
What are trackbacks?
Trackpacks are notifications WordPress sends to another site when you include a link to that site in your blog post. This trackpack will “ping” that site to let them know you’ve created a link. They can choose to approve the trackback which would show an excerpt of your post and a link to your site in their comments.
What are pingbacks?
Pingbacks are automatic notifcations sent between sites. Unlike trackbacks, if a site has pingbacks enabled the notifications will automatically be verified and a link will be added in the comments.
Pros & Cons
Pingbacks and trackbacks can be great for increasing backlinks which improve SEO. They help you make connections with other sites in your niche. They also offer more content to your users that they could be interested in. Unfortunately, they also create lots of SPAM. Spammers like to use these options to get as many links as possible on others’ sites. You’ll have to moderate your trackbacks to make sure spam isn’t flooding your site. Pingbacks were created to help monitor the spam, and aren’t sent unless both blogs have them enabled, but spammers still found a way! You’ll still have to spend a lot of time moderating comments.
Summary
While pingbacks and trackbacks were meant to help boost websites, it’s recommended that most sites disable them. They just create too much spam and wasted time. You can turn them off in WordPress under your Discussion Settings. Have you used pingback and trackbacks effectively? Let us know in the comments!