FrontPage RecentChanges AboutWikiFeatures WikiNode

TrackBack

Wiki pages to support blog-style trackbacks. This allows for remote cross-site notification of added Urls.


Possibilities

For some years now, blogs have been able to show backlinks to each other through a feature called trackback. Initially this was a gesture of respect, that you let someone know when you are linking to them. However, it has evolved into an informational ecosystem that not only encourages linking, but also allows for automated systems like Technorati to navigate the blogosphere.

A related protocol is PingBack.

Implementation of either TrackBack and PingBack (or both) could possibly replace the less reliable RefererLogging (abused by web/link spammers).

Implementations

Activity

ErfurtWiki has rejected TrackBack in favor of PingBack. – MarioSalzer

Terminology

Here is a concise definition from MSDN of the differences between Pingback and Trackback for weblogs and when you might use each:

Because hyperlink referrals still require manual intervention in order to trigger notification, two additional and more instant notification mechanisms have gained the support of the weblog community and tool builders: Pingback and Trackback. Pingback allows implementing automatic notifications between weblog engines without having to rely on HTTP referrals. Pingback defines a Web service interface (using the XML-RPC Web services protocol, not its successor SOAP) and two auto-discovery mechanisms. The function principle is very simple: When the weblog author posts a new entry to their weblog, the engine looks at the submitted HTML fragment and scans it for hyperlinks. It will then issue an HTTP GET request to each of those links, using one or both of the auto-discovery mechanisms, looking for an HTTP header or a special tag embedded in HTML, in order to find out whether the link target supports the Pingback protocol. If a Pingback endpoint is detected, the engine will submit a ping Web service call, supplying the URLs of both, the pinged and the pinging weblog entry. Pingback has the advantage of instant notification about citations and, just as important, about changes to these citations. Trackback aims to provide similar functionality, but with a slightly different spin. The protocol does not only provide the URL of the pinging entry, but optionally also the title and a short excerpt of the source entry along with the weblog's name. Contrary to Pingback, which is fully automatic, Trackback is typically used as an explicit, on-demand notification mechanism. The major technical difference between Pingback and Trackback is that Pingback employs an XML-RPC Web service interface while a Trackback ping is technically equivalent to submitting a form in a browser - the information is posted using a HTTP POST request employing the application/x-www-form-urlencoded content type, precisely as it is the case with HTML forms. Although different, both protocols succeed in achieving their goal: improving collaboration and communication.

My personal experience is that more blog software supports TrackBack then PingBack. – ChristopherAllen

Problems

Requires a custom XML format, SOAP marshalling, RDF for autodiscovery. – MarioSalzer

See Also

Original TrackBack Specification, TrackBack Development, Trackback at Google

Contributors

ChristopherAllen


CategoryFeature CategoryLinking