The Cosmopolitan Blog

ok, so i’m usually really good at understanding the latest technology concepts, why is is that i don’t get the concept of a trackback in a blog???? so here’s me testing this live.

STEP 1: I’m surfing around, and I find something really interesting on someone’s website, and I want to write about it in my own blog.

STEP 2: I go to my own blog right here and write something like I’m doing now:

“hey! you guys should read this great post called “Numbers Declining” on my friend’s blog: http://www.derekandsonja.ca/blog/?p=32“.

Note: The URL I’m giving here is the post’s unique link, also known as a permalink.

STEP 3: Before I submit this post (I leave the window open), in a separate window, I go back to my friend’s site, find that post, and click on the “Trackback” link that resides right under each individual post. The Trackback URL is different from the post’s permalink URL listed above, generally, it includes the world “trackback”. I copy this trackback URL into my clipboard (Ctrl+C).

STEP 4: I go back to my post that I’m writing, and in the field called “URLs to Ping” or “Send Trackbacks to”, I paste the trackback URL.

STEP 5: I publish my post.

STEP 6: If I go back to the post in question (http://www.derekandsonja.ca/blog/?p=32), I will see (depending on the blog software), that there is a (1) next to the word Trackback now (meaning there is 1 trackback to this site), in addition, there is now an extra comment on that post, with an excerpt of my post here on The Cosmopolitan Blog. To read the full comment, readers would click on the “more” and end up right here, on this blog. It’s magic!!!

Still confused? Did I confuse you even more? Illustrations help Check out this site: http://cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/trackback.html