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<H1 CLASS="western">Trackback – Howto</H1>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<H2 CLASS="western">What trackback does – an example.</H2>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Suppose you read a post on someone
else's blog, Blog-A say, and you think there is relevant content
(posts and comments) on your site, Blog-B.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">It would be helpful if readers of
Blog-A could see the post and comments on your site Blog-B. That may
or may not be possible. There are two ways of doing this – pingback
and trackback. This article deals with trackback – see
pingback.html in the same directory for 'Howto Pingback'.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">The difference between pingback and
trackback is that what is shown on the remote site. With pingback readers of
Blog-A, see a link to your site, Blog-B. With trackback your post on
Blog-B is reproduced as a comment on Blog-A, and since it is possible
to spoof the source address, readers of Blog-A may be misled as to
who really posted the comment. With pingback spoofing the source just
links to a different site (possibly non-existent).</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<H2 CLASS="western">Is it possible?</H2>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">It will be possible if
</P>
<UL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">The administrator of site Blog-A
has enabled trackback for the site, and</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">The administrator of site Blog-A
has enabled trackback for the post, and</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">You are using a theme on Blog-B
that has code to display trackback options to the screen.</P>
</UL>
<H2 CLASS="western">Here is how it is done:</H2>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<UL>
<li><h4>Administrator's pre-actions</h4>
<table><tr>
<td>a. Settings-Privacy </td>
<td align='right'>Check the box </td>
<td><i>"I would like my blog to be visible to
everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and
archivers."</i></td>
</tr><tr>
<td> </td>
<td>Save changes.</td>
<td> </td>
</tr><tr>
<td>b. Settings-Writing </td>
<td align='right'>Check the boxes </td>
<td><i>"Enable the Atom Publishing
Protocol.</i>"</td>
</tr><tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td><i>"Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and
Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols."</i></td>
</tr><tr>
<td> </td>
<td>Save changes.</td>
<td> </td>
</tr></table>
</LI>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Visit Blog-A, read the relevant
post, and find the trackback URL. This may be difficult for there is
no standard way of presenting it. Different themes put it in
different places on the screen and call it by different names. Copy
the link to your clipboard. Typically the link will be something
like
</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom:
0cm">'http://www.someone_elses_domain.co.uk/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=123'</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">
<table><tr>
<td valign='top'>Tip: </td>
<td>
If the remote site is a wordpress powered site,
the simplest way to get the trackback URL is to copy it from the browser address
bar when viewing the post and then add "wp-trackback.php" between "/blog/"
and "?p=".</td>
</tr></table>
</LI>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Visit your own site, Blog-B, and
edit the post you wish to have accessible from Blog-A. You should
paste the trackback URL from the previous step (Blog-A's trackback
URL) into the 'Send trackbacks to' field.</P>
<p STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><Strong>Note </strong>the difference between
trackbacks and pingbacks:-<br>
Trackback urls go in the 'Send trackbacks to' box;<br>
Pingback permalinks are included in the text of the post inside <a href ...> </a>
tags (use the HTML tab when editing).<br>
The trackback url and the pingback permalink are usually different for the same post.<br>
If you put the trackback url in the post text or the pingback permalink in the
'Send trackbacks to' box nothing will happen.
</p>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Fill in the 'Excerpt' field with a
taster of what is in your post. This is what will be shown on the
remote blog (Blog-A).</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Update the post.</P>
</UL>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">It may happen almost immediately or
there may be a delay before the taster and a link to the post on your
blog (Blog-B) appears on the other blog (Blog-A). Most site
administrators require contributions to their blog to be moderated
before publishing, particularly in the case of trackbacks which could
contain offensive material or links to undesirable sites.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><BR>
</P>
<H2 CLASS="western">What can go wrong</H2>
<H3 CLASS="western"><FONT SIZE=3>No output on remote site</FONT></H3>
<UL>
<LI><P><FONT SIZE=3>The remote administrator has not configured his
site correctly – the correct permissions and correct use of
caching are important.</FONT></P>
<LI><P><FONT SIZE=3>You have not used the correct trackback URI.
(Note this is usually different from the permalink used for
pingbacks,<br>e.g. trackback URI is<br>
“http://www.someone_elses_domain.co.uk/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=123”<br>
while pingback permalink is<br>
“http://www.someone_elses_domain.co.uk/blog/?p=123”).</FONT></P>
<LI><P><FONT SIZE=3>The data is waiting for moderation.</FONT></P>
<LI><P><FONT SIZE=3>A spam catcher has discarded it.</FONT></P>
<LI><P><FONT SIZE=3>You have not configured you own site correctly
to send the trackback data.</FONT></P>
</UL>
<UL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">The remote site may be using a
different blog publishing protocol from Wordpress. You may have to
go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Writing and tick the box <I>Enable
the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC
publishing protocols. (W</I><SPAN STYLE="font-style: normal">ordpress
is already set by default) and/or tick the box </SPAN><I>Enable the
Atom Publishing Protocol</I></P>
</UL>
<H2 CLASS="western"><FONT SIZE=3>Bootnote</FONT></H2>
<P><FONT SIZE=3>Many Blog sites do not enable trackback because of
the problem with 'Comment Spam'. If you get a spam problem (with or
without trackback) try using </FONT><A HREF="http://www.akismet.com/">akismet</A>.
The askimet module is already installed. You just need to enable and
configure it.</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=3>For further help on trackback see <A HREF="http://www.optiniche.com/blog/117/wordpress-trackback-tutorial/">WordPress
Trackback Tutorial - by Teli Adlam</A></FONT></P>
<P><BR><BR>
</P>
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