Marketing Defined

This Article clearly explains Trackback and Auto Discovery for Blogger users .. which are not only crucial, but affordable search engine optimization, internet marketing and viral traffic generating tools .. normally only available to users of more sophisticated Blog scripts … namely: Moveable Type, and Wordpress amongst others.

.. and the reasons Blogger users often completely ignore this feature ..

.. firstly, a lack of concise and articulate instruction on the application of trackback , apart from which .. the manual process of sending a trackback ping is a bit drawn-out..

According to this Haloscan tutorial on sending a trackback ping, each time you want to send a trackback from Blogger (or similar tool), you have to employ the following:

The Steps to send a trackback ping from Haloscan

• log in to Haloscan
• click ‘Manage Trackback”
• click “Send a trackback ping”
• Paste the TrackBack ping URL into the edit box for ‘URLs to Ping’
• Fill in your blog name
• Paste YOUR permalink URL
• Paste a copy of your Post Title
• Paste (or write) a “juicy” excerpt from your post
• Click the ‘Ping Now’ button.

Haloscan trackback is an indispensable free service, but all those laborious steps, might explain why most users simply ignore this traffic generating tool … pity!

Just stop and think for a moment: Your trackback URL is at the bottom of a related Blog post on a highly trafficked site .. resulting in targeted clicks to your Post .. which you would not have gained, but for bothering to take the few extra seconds entailed, in using trackback in the first place.

But hold on a minute: for all you lazy Bloggers out there, I found this:

The Wizbang Blog standalone Trackback Pinger

the Wizbang Blog Standalone Trackback Pinger has come to the rescue. Simply add the URL of their Standalone Trackback Pinger to your favorites page, fill in a couple of required lines, and ping away.

This Wizbang form can be used to send a trackback ping to any blog that accepts Trackbacks. You do not need to have a Trackback system on your blog to send pings. After submitting the form the results will be displayed on a separate screen. There is a simple explanation of the success and failure codes at the bottom of the page … extremely user-friendly tool.

The Auto Discovery feature for trackback explained

Refer the following thread in the Haloscan forums about adding code to your Blogger templates which enables Auto-Discovery of TrackBack URLs .. which is something that Blog tools like MoveableType and TypePad already do.

How to add the Auto Discovery feature in to your Blogger template is clearly explained in the above thread.. this auto discovery feature offers other Blog users easy access to a run down of the trackback URL’s to the relevant topics they wish to “ping” .. without auto discovery enabled in your Blog template, your Posts will probably be excluded from some note-worthy Blogs, capable of bringing in valuable targeted traffic and growing your Blog’s reader base.

According to Jeevan who owns Haloscan: One negative side to adding the Auto Discovery feature, it adds unnecessary bulk to the HTML code of a template. A point to be considered for search engine optimization and the desired high rankings in search engines for your online blog

Application and Benefits of Trackback

The following is an excerpt from the Bugger It Blog - great coverage on all the many uses for trackback - gracious thanks to Kevin, Editor of Bugger It who went that extra mile to articulate the Application and Benefits of Trackback to us.

Quote:
You are telling their Trackback server that you published something relevant to that page, and therefore people who were interested in that page might also be interested in yours. The host of the Trackback server (whomever enabled trackback on their web pages) has given you that permission and provided you the means.

So, Trackbacks are cool because they straighten out the linking process, but that’s not all they do. You can also reverse Trackbacks, by Trackback linking to your own document. So, in addition to linking from the other document to yours, you can also link yours back to theirs.

This is just like a hyperlink, but has two distinct advantages. One, a Trackback link in this way comes at the end of a document, instead of inline where the user is interrupted from reading your article to read the related.

So, it’s more like a footnote or “related reading” section than a traditional link Trackback links are also maintained by a server, so you don’t have to worry about broken links. If the linked document (over which you have no control) is moved or deleted, the link just goes away, gracefully, instead of delivering your user at an error message.

Combining links and reversed Trackback links could be a good way to maintain your references. Why not have inline links that refer to your Trackbacks for that article?

It’s also a good way to overcome the problem of indexing your own blog. Say you have a blog like mine in which the content could be categorized. I have a series of blog articles about web design, a series on Photography, and so on. I could maintain an index page, which would contain links grouped by topic.

What a nightmare! I could go back and edit all the related articles with a “related reading” index. A nightmare within a horror show! Or, I could use Trackbacks.
Unquote:

How to install the free trackback and commenting system on Blogger

Refer a previous Post on how to easily set up the free Haloscan trackback and commenting system for online Blogs … it is a simple two click automatic installation for Blogger based blogs.

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Two other pictoral Posts on this topic you will find useful are:

Trackback explained from Michael at Cruftbox with pictures:
http://www.cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/trackback.html

and:

From Jim Daniels an interview with Thomas Pierce on how to use trackback with graphic video instruction: http://www.igottatellyou.com/blog/

Hope all of the above finally and fully explains .. and convinces you of the importance of using Trackback to its fullest potential .. not only for your Blogger based template and other Blog software, but for commenting systems for websites in general.

If you are still confused .. give up Blogging .. only joshing!

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