Well that worked like a charm the first time. (How often does that happen?) I had to guess about exactly what link to use in the trackback field. What you do is go to the permanent page for the post you want to trackback to. Then just copy the URL from the address bar and add “/trackback/” to the end.

The excerpt it produced could be neater. Here is what it displayed:

than wait to see if those trackbacks are approved by those other editors, I will try one on my own divorce blog. addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.howardmackinnon.com%2Fblog-marketing-trackbacks-part-2%2F’; …

Pretty ugly. It was only a short post so maybe it stuck that “addurl” stuff in the fill up space. The heading of the comment appearing on the divorce blog was an active link back to my post and that’s the main thing - getting a backlink (or a trackback).

I wonder whether Google views this any differently than reciprocal links.

Rather than wait to see if those trackbacks are approved by those other editors, I will try one on my own divorce blog.

I am learning about trackbacks so this is an attempt to see if I can actually do it right. The idea is that if you post a riff on your blog . . . (time out for translation) . . .

“post” = publish

“riff” = a post (usually a short one) that is really just a comment about a post on someone else’s blog

. . . so, if you post a riff on your blog you should enter the URL (address) of the post you are commenting on into the trackback field. That will make an excerpt of your post show up on the other blog as a comment (once that blog’s editor approves it).

Why bother?

1. You just wrote some new content on your blog.

2. You just got a link to your post in the comments section of the other guy’s blog

3. The other guy just got some new content (your excerpt in his comment section).

4. The other guy also just got a new link to his blog.

It’s a win-win. Here’s the little checklist I’ve written for it. I use WordPress (of course).

How to use trackbacks

1. Find a relevant blog which accepts Trackbacks. Use Google for this by searching for “divorce Trackbacks”.

2. Find one of the posts on that blog that you want to write a post about. This kind of post is called a “riff”.

3. Write your post as usual but be sure to refer to the other blog and include a link to it.

4. Copy and paste the TrackBack URL from the other blog post to the Trackbacks field below your new post.

5. Prepare your post for publishing in the normal way.

6. Publish your post.

Here are the two best sources of beginner level info I’ve found on this topic. The first one is a video by Jack Humphreys entitled, “How to do a TrackBack to get more links and traffic.”

The second is a tutorial called, “WordPress TrackBack tutorial“.

Now, by referring to these resources, which both appear on blogs, I have done a riff. I can now do a trackback to these two blogs. Let’s see if it works . . .