17 Aug 2009, Posted by christie in Blogging Bytes, 25 Comments
Why aren’t my trackbacks working?
I read a lot of blogs throughout the week, and I notice that even the biggest of them often show their trackbacks in a little group near the comments. But when I linked to a couple of blogs last month, I went back to the blog I’d linked to later to see my trackback (OK, chalk it up to the excitement of a beginner), and there was no trackback from me! I decided that they must have decided not to show my trackback for some reason. Perhaps they thought I was a spammer! It happened several times though, and one time I linked to someone I know online and asked him – did he get my trackback? He did not. And he tried linking to me – and I did not receive his trackback either. So in case you are having the same problem, here’s what I found in my own WordPress settings:
1) Make sure the top box is checked in WordPress Settings - Discussion – to attempt to notify. I guess I had thought that would happen automatically some other way, so mine was unchecked!
2) For any posts you had previously linked to someone, you are going to have to open them for edit, and update the post before the trackbacks will happen. I tried this with ChrisBrogan.com and with HowToMakeMyBlog.com, looking at the post I’d linked to, and the trackback from me did not appear ’til I re-saved my own post.
I don’t think trackbacks are going to be a big traffic source for me, but I do want to notify others when I link to them. The biggest bloggers probably get too much input from readers already and may not care, but others may like knowing that their post was appreciated enough to be referred to and linked to.
Photo credit: Dylerpillar
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25 Comments
August 17, 2009 6:50 pm
Stefan
A friend of mine linked to me as well but for some reason there never was created a trackback within my blog. Could there be something wrong with WordPress?
Stefan´s last blog ..69 Inspirational Quotes eBook
August 17 2009 20:25 pm
Christie
I had noticed that I received some trackbacks lately where other bloggers linked to me. So that's why I really started to wonder why my own trackbacks didn't show up on other peoples' blogs. If you look at my post about Alltop (linked to ChrisBrogan.com) or the one about Thesis thumbnails (linked to HowToMakeMyBlog.com) you can now see the trackbacks on the posts on their blogs after I finally realized I needed to check that top box in Discussion.
September 08 2009 00:41 am
Chetan
Yes i am also facing same problem .Is that setting wordpress version dependent ?
.-= Chetan´s last blog ..Aiptek PenCam HD Trio : Small marker sized camcorder records video in HD. =-.
August 18, 2009 12:18 am
George Serradinho
I received a trackback from you late yesterday night. It was for a post you did on the 6th of August. I accepted it.
It’s good to notify others about trackbacks, it promotes link love and you could also get some link love back.
George Serradinho´s last blog ..Premium Elegant Theme
August 18 2009 06:04 am
Christie
Yes, last night I went back and saved that post again so that hte trackback would work. When I originally wrote it, I did not have a check in the top box in Discussion so you didn't get a trackback. Thanks George!
August 18, 2009 1:15 am
Ching Ya
Christie,
I just received a trackback from you today (18/08/09 4.59a.m. ) about ‘a few cool bytes’ you did earlier about ‘The Best of Twitter Desktop Clients — Secret Revealed’. Have checked the settings as well, they are well configured. I wonder what could be the problem? Have you tried with the WP support group?
Ching Ya´s last blog ..WCHINGYA.COM Is Now A Do Follow Blog (Free Images)!
August 18 2009 06:06 am
Christie
That just means it's working fine now. :) When I wrote the post, I didn't have the check in the top box in Discussion, so you didn't get a trackback. Last night I went back and re-saved any posts where I could remember linking to someone, so all trackbacks should be in place now. Thanks for letting me know it's working now Ching Ya! :)
August 18, 2009 4:13 am
Ricky
Luckily, all the option in my dashboard are enabled. I don’t get many trackbacks. I got trackback from some website called allaboutwordpress.com I don’t accept trackback from these type of site. I ain’t sure but as far as I know one shouldn’t use wordpress in his domain. Am I right? Enlighten me.
August 18, 2009 10:45 am
Jean
Thank you! I’m going to check my settings.
Jean´s last blog ..Alice Might Be For You
August 18 2009 12:35 pm
christie
You're welcome! :) This is one of those things I overlooked and just didn't look into until lately, so I hoped it would help some more of you.
August 18, 2009 12:30 pm
Klaus @ TechPatio
I had the “notify any blogs linked to” set to off because of the “may slow down posting”-part.
I’ve tried to enable it again now but I could only remember one post where I linked to another WordPress post and so far no trackback appeared at his site. I’ll keep an eye on it in the future though, so I better start mentioning some blogs in my posts
Thanks for sharing Christie!
Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..Most Popular Camera On Flickr: iPhone
August 18 2009 12:37 pm
christie
You're welcome Klaus! :)
You have to go back to your post where you linked to someone - make a little change in the post or don't change, but definitely click Update Post. That will send the trackback. Then after that everything should work fine. It's just that the posts that were already written when you had the box unchecked will not send trackbacks until you Update Post.
August 18, 2009 8:43 pm
Sire
I’ve just deleted a whole lot of trackbacks that were caught in the spam filter but none were from you Christie. They were all spam trackbacks, you know the sort where blogs troll the net looking for keywords that they can link to for some reason. All the trackbacks were to my domain post so obviously that was the keyword they were aiming for.
I have noticed though that some legitimate trackbacks haven’t made it through though, several were from kikolani.com, so I don’t know whats happening there. Must be a little glitch somewhere.
Sire´s last blog ..Sedo For Buying, Selling And Parking Domains
August 19, 2009 6:24 am
Christie
That is strange! And yes, I’ve had some of those spam ones too. “This blogger wrote today…” then they post your whole post on their own blog.
Thanks for checking. Hoping I have everything working now.
August 19, 2009 10:33 am
Extreme John
It’s funny that you bring trackbacks up, for whatever reason and I am not sure why but my trackbacks started showing in my comments section.
I hate it, I don’t like where it’s currently placing them which means I now have to hunt down a good trackback plugin. Haha.
Extreme John´s last blog ..How Important are Your Passwords
August 20 2009 20:07 pm
christie
Ah, the problems of the fortunate bloggers who get back links. ;)
August 20, 2009 4:47 am
Jacob Yap
Sometimes the trackbacks don’t work for me as well. Someone have linked to me, but it doesn’t show up. That’s weird.
Jacob Yap´s last blog ..Envato Birthday Bundle – $300 Of Files For Just $20
August 20 2009 20:07 pm
christie
Well tell those people to check their Discussion settings in WordPress! :)
August 22, 2009 2:49 pm
Blogspot to Wordpress
Trackback are one important part and it’s good for traffic… More over when you send a track back to anyone blog u create a relation
Lolz enough on trackback it’s time to check my settings…
Blogspot to WordPress´s last blog ..How to add Twitter ID into Thesis wordpress Theme Comment Form
August 22 2009 22:14 pm
christie
Very true! The trackback is the ultimate compliment, isn't it? It says someone thought so well of what you wrote that they referred to it and linked to you. Yep, better check those settings. :D
August 23, 2009 8:44 am
Evan Kline
Thanks for explaining this. Trackbacks are still a bit of a mystery to me, including knowing whether I simply need to link to a blog in my content, or actually spell it out with the other blog’s trackback link in my post’s settings. To complicate factors, some blogs don’t post their trackback links, although most WordPress blogs follow the same format.
Evan Kline´s last blog ..Google Voice – A Primer
August 23 2009 17:02 pm
MiscBytes
Hi Evan, Once you put the check in the box for "Attempt to notify any blogs...." then anytime you link to someone else's blog it will be notified. You don't have to worry about the trackback link. I think that is for legacy systems of some sort. If you put the check in "Attempt to notify" and have some old posts that had links to blogs, you have to go back to the old posts and update them in order to get them to send their trackback. Thanks for your comment!
August 26, 2009 7:51 am
Ana
Thank you for highlighting this, Christie. I have been lacking in trackbacks latetly, and I have been curious as to whether I have been missing a setting.
Ana´s last blog ..23:23
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