Trackback is a term which is usually associated with blogging. So what exactly is Trackback?
Trackback is a basically a functionality which allows a blog administrator to easily contribute and respond to feedback received from blogging community all around the World. For instance, you come across a blog, read its content and you happen to find a particular entry that was interesting enough for you to leave a comment, generally what most readers do is leave their thoughts in the comments field of that blog. While this is a great way to contribute to the topic, in a way it deprives your own blog of valuable content. It is possible that you may get inspired from a particular blog entry to write something slightly different and more thorough.
So instead of just leaving a detailed and potentially long comment, you can take this opportunity to write down your own thoughts on that particular topic in your own blog and create a special link which would be a trackback to the original blog entry from where you actually got the inspiration. Usually you could put in a simple URL to the original blog entry, but the problem with this method is that the original blog entry doesn’t get to know or promote your own new post.
To create the trackback you must find the trackback URL that the site promotes for that entry. This is found underneath the entry in the comments section. Using that URL all you need to do is paste it into the trackback field in the blog entry page. When you publish the new post on your own blog, the originating site will be alerted automatically which will then list your blog entry with the other comments. Trackback is just like comments, when someone trackbacks to one of your entries it will show up on your entries page next to the appropriate entry. If you click on this it will take you to a page that displays the title URL and excerpt from their entry. This kind of remote commenting allows for greater detail without losing the readers.
Your own blog entries already have trackbacks enabled for other readers to comment remotely. When someone trackbacks to your blog their details will be listed under your own blog comments. A small title and the URL will be displayed that allows your readers to click to read more.
Trackback is supported by many blogs and it is indeed a great way for you to comment around the blog world while retaining your own identity and many link backs to your own blog.
