In her comments about Increasing Your Blog Traffic, Juliestew asked what trackbacks are and how they work. Although this is something probably handled in the HomeschoolBlogger Forum, I thought I'd chip in my take on trackbacks.

Trackbacks are an interesting piece of technology as innovative as blogging itself. Let's say you're reading a blog and what they had to say spurred you on an inspiring and even exciting new train of thought. Rather than clutter up someone else's comments section with a long post, you can post your entry on your own blog. Using the trackback feature, if the blog site supports it, you can take the Trackback URL, usually a link below the blog entry you read, from the site and put it in the Trackback URL blank on your blog.

Here's where it gets innovative. Your blog site (HSB in this case) takes the URL and trades information with the other person's blog. Your site tells their site that you have a posting related to theirs and tells it to list it as a trackback on the original post that inspired you.

The practical impact of the trackback is immediate. Future readers of the original post can click on that trackback link you created, directing them from that site to yours, increasing your traffic.Depending on the settings of the blog, readers of the original post may be able to see some of what you said before they visit your site. Some advice: Make sure the title of your post and the first few lines of your post are relevant to the original post. People will use the trackback more often if they see that what you have to say is interesting to them.

There are benefits to trackbacks over commenting and vise-versa. Trackbacks allow you to keep your insights on your blog and not scatter them all over the blogosphere. Additionally, they allow you to make full use of HTML such as links, bolded text, colors, sizes, and fonts, and even pictures to illustrate your point. Yipes!

On the other hand, trackbacks are a feature few people understand. People grasp what comments are and how to use the feature. Yet because they don't understand what a trackback is, they don't click on the link. If they don't click on the trackback, they don't get to see what you say. It may be better just commenting and hoping someone clicks on your link to find your site.

Still, I have used the trackback feature often. That alone has brought some people here to my blog that wouldn't have found me otherwise, some of which appear to come back time and again. This is most folks' primary objective of blogging.

Give it a shot! Take the Trackback URL here and use it to put a trackback on your own blog post. Come back to this post, refresh the page, and you will likely find your trackback listed here.

Thanks, Julie, for the great question!

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