Occasionally, we get asked what pingbacks and trackbacks are. Is it helpful to have them in your website? And what about blog comments, should you enable it or not?
What are comments, pingbacks and trackbacks?
The space where readers can share their thoughts, ideas, opinions and feelings about a particular article or blog post is called a blog comment.
It’s where you determine exactly what they think about your post and where you can interact and engage with your readers.
Sometimes, bloggers find it important to link their blog to another related blog. When you do, the other blogger gets notified about the link. The notification is called a pingback. They can in turn opt to let your link appear on their site.
Trackbacks are very similar to pingbacks. The difference between the two is that in trackbacks, the other blogger is sent an excerpt of the content and the excerpt is manually done. Pingbacks work automatically and no excerpts are sent.
Should you enable comments, pingbacks and trackbacks?
Some people argue that comments are an important component of what makes a blog a blog. It’s the heart of every blog because it creates rapport, increases views, builds a bigger community and social proof.
To turn it on or off depends on your type of business, brand and industry goals. It is important though to consider the following:
In general, we recommend you disable blog commenting. With the rise of social media, there are many other places to discuss content. It is only blogs that have a history of commenting and discussion that tend to continue to do so.
Pingbacks and trackbacks are essentially a great way to share opinions and ideas. However, we don’t usually turn them on for the following reasons:
If you need further help with your website, contact us at [email protected] We can go over your site to see how it is performing and determine the areas where it can improve.
