What are "Pingbacks" in Wordpress & are they good ? bad ? useless ?

[busoppreviews]

I have started a blog based on my hobby so as to provide regular quality content

Today Wordpress notified me of a pingback on one of my posts.

It appears someone has copied and pasted the first paragraph of one of my posts and put it on their own blog with a link to my post so the reader can read more than just the first paragraph.

What does all of this mean ?

What will "approving" the pingback do for me if anything ?

From first sight this looks good. I just got a backlink from someone for free. Which begs the question "why would someone copy paragraphs from others blogs and post it on their own blog?" - surely this is duplicate content which google hates ?

Thank you in advance for your explanations and advice

[GeorgR.]

It appears someone has copied and pasted the first paragraph of one of my posts and put it on their own blog with a link to my post so the reader can read more than just the first paragraph.

What does all of this mean ?

this is whats called a trackback, nothing to worry about (usually). Wordpress has the feature that it can notify other blogs you link to in your posts....as well as it can notify you if another blog links to you.

the two blogs then "communicate" to each other, basically share their links with whats called a "trackback" which is usually a excerpt from the blog.

BUT...this is heavily exploited by spammers to send "fake" trackback and pings out (with some software) because it gets you backlinks. Therefore, many blogs now by default disable this, and also by using a spam filter like akismet its almost impossible to even get a "legit" trackback through, it will always ends up in the spam queue and is LIKELY not posted until you manually approve it. If the trackback/excerpts looks legit there is IMHO no reason not to approve them, its a win-win situation for both blogs.

CORRECT me if i am wrong with my explanation.

surely this is duplicate content which google hates ?

its only one line <-- nothing to worry about.

Here some additional remarks:

By "overdoing" it with spamfilters and not taking advantage of pingbacks and trackbacks...people dont realize that they take something away from wordpress which is actually a GOOD thing. It's what makes web2.0 so good - how people and sites can "communicate", share links and information..and why WP is so much better for SEO than an old-style site. Why eg. akismet doesn't let legit trackbacks go through is beyond me. Its basically limiting some wordpress features.

[busoppreviews]

So if I approve the trackback/pingback am I going to give a link back to that site ?

Surely it's better that I ignore it so as to have a one-way link to my site ? Isn't that better ?

[SirAlex]

I think you are right on both counts, strange that none of the backlinking experts here have chipped in.

I suspect that tons of peeps here are running autoblogs and they want us to approve thier spam comments!

But maybe I'm being too suspicious?

:-)

[DorianJ]

I searched Google for this very issue and this thread was the top result!

It seems strange to me that I can't find an answer to this anywhere, not even at wordpress.

If someone is linking to me, then why wouldn't that be enough to make me happy? Why would I want to lower my page's "value" by linking back to the other site? Am I totally missing something here?

[azmanar]

Hi,

Akismet plugin is good to filter spams. Activate it.

WP TrackBacks is good. But first, check out the site that wants approval.

Answer 2 questions:
1. Is it relevant to your content?
2. Is the blogger just like you, sincerely offering useful info to readers?

One more thing.

Why would backlinks that lower PR value is a major concern? As far as I know, PR does not contribute to better SERP results nor contributes to more traffic. So, I won't be so concerned about PR value.

Having backlinks means networking, which means increasing traffic opportunities to your site, organically.

Have you heard of Blog Networks?

Bloggers started off sharing backlinks with each other. Then they start contributing unique articles to members. No one shares the same articles. Then they grow bigger to hundreds of members. This is when they start making money by offering Ad Space to members and others outside their networks. And Search Engines love them.

Think bigger than just offering content. How about joining blog networks or building your own.

My 2 cents.

[cybermobster]

A Question here. !
I can protect my site using Akismet plugin, but how do I pingback other sites, I want to know the procedure to pingback or trackback. any help appreciated.

[bigcat1967]

Good info guys - I'm starting to learn WP...

All this time been using templates and moving the HTML and CSS around to fit my needs.

[BarryWheeler]

Chances are it's an autoblog that's been pointed at your blog to either scrape your content or link to it.

I suggest you use Akismet to stop the spam. It will pick that up.

Now when you link to another blog in your content (if you are illustrating a point), it will be a valid pingback or trackback ... they blog owner on the otherside will get notified that you've linked to them.

[cybermobster]

Hi Berry
So exactly how do I linked to them to get pingback?

[bostoncitymass]

You don't need to approve pingbacks, but check where they are coming from. I get pingbacks from articles I submit to my blog networks. I get the pingback then "ping" it in pingler so Google can find the article with my backlink in it.

Check to see where they are coming from and if they are linking to your site and the site is fairly decent, ping it then delete it. A backlink is a backlink, even if it is a low pr. Just make sure it doesn't look like a scraper or a totally crappy useless site.

[rwdomainmonster]

If somebody links to you from their blog, so you get a pingback, and then later they remove the link, do you get another notification that they are no longer linking to you? I've never received a "link removed" message whether it be called a pingback or a trackback or anything else.

[ArdJan]

Pingbacks are also good for backlinking purposes which means your sites' ranking will improve. Check if the URL in the pingback has been indexed by Google. If not enter the URL into pingfarm.com or another ping service. When Google finds the backlink to your site, it will help your ranking.
I do this once a week for my Wordpress blogs.
To see if a URL is indexed by Google, just enter the URL in the Google search field. When indexed it returns as the first result.

[UMS]

I never approve pingbacks as it could be considered a two way link exchange.

However, what I do is collect all the pingback URLs and make sure they are indexed so that the backlinks to my site are counted.

A useful plugin for extracting all the pingbacks is called "Pingback Power".

See Pingback Power WordPress Plugin, Get It Free! - DBPMARKETING

[scottkyzer]

Originally Posted by UMS

I never approve pingbacks as it could be considered a two way link exchange.

However, what I do is collect all the pingback URLs and make sure they are indexed so that the backlinks to my site are counted.

Wait a sec. So you're saying that a two way link exchange isn't good?

[Juvv2096]

check you pingbacks to see who is linking to your site. As you have found out it can be sometimes the same content from your site, which is now duplicated.

Othertime it can be if you have purchased a backlinking service (like mine ) and it can be a very handy way of knowing your backlinks are going out correctly. the main thing is, you can also build backlinks to the backlinkg you just got! this will be used as a "filter" to pass on any link juice from the other back linking you do to that article / page.

example:

yoursite<-------site that sent you pingback<------------social bookmark<-----RSS

[AAFOCUS]

I wonder if you get algorithm points for approving pingbacks?
Its an interesting topic, cant find too much more about this online.

[noddy]

In my experience there are lots of spammers and low quality sites out there virtually scraping content and after a pingback. In these situations (that make it through Aksimet) I don't accept them. If the pingback is from a reputable site with strong content then I would put it live. There's nothing wrong - and probably a bonus - for your SERPs in Google seeing you interact in the "right" kind of bloggosphere.