What I didn't realize by building so many blogs and not keeping them updated on a daily or every other day basis, was that I was just wasting my time. Spinning my wheels. Well, today I read this article about blogging. It made me think and realize that I had the wrong approach, thought process and mode of attack to be a successful blogger. I should have started with one...then transformed a successful blog into two. Once those two were seeing regular hits and visitors, then and only then could I think about starting a new one.
Although the following article on trackback links is not for the first time blog reader, it is the message that flipped my thinking around to focus on being a better blogger. That is why I am sharing it with you now.
Trackbacks
Trackbacks were originally developed by SixApart, creators of the MovableType blog package. SixApart has a good introduction to trackbacks: , In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, "This is something you may be interested in." To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.
A better explanation is this:
Person A writes something on their blog.
Person B wants to comment on Person A's blog, but wants her own readers to see what she had to say, and be able to comment on her own blog
Person B posts on her own blog and sends a trackback to Person A's blog
Person A's blog receives the trackback, and displays it as a comment to the original post. This comment contains a link to Person B's post.
The idea here is that more people are introduced to the conversation (both Person A's and Person B's readers can follow links to the other's post), and that there is a level of authenticity to the trackback comments because they originated from another weblog. Unfortunately, there is no actual verification performed on the incoming trackback, and indeed they can even be faked.
Most trackbacks send to Person A only a small portion (called an "excerpt") of what Person B had to say. This is meant to act as a "teaser", letting Person A (and his readers) see some of what Person B had to say, and encouraging them all to click over to Person B's site to read the rest (and possibly comment).
Person B's trackback to Person A's blog generally gets posted along with all the comments. This means that Person A can edit the contents of the trackback on his own server, which means that the whole idea of "authenticity" isn't really solved. (Note: Person A can only edit the contents of the trackback on his own site. He cannot edit the post on Person B's site that sent the trackback.)
Jennifer Staley
Creator of "Jenn-101.blogspot.com"
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