Forum Feedback So whats this Ping/Trackback on our forums? come right in..

[Safin]

I am sure you must have noticed the box right at the bottom of every thread saying ping/trackball. If you have been wondering what it is and what's the use of it, then this thread is for you.

Now for those who actively blog would already know about the terms. However this is the first time you are seeing anything like this on a forum based software. Right now this is a beta feature of vbseo and i am among the select few board admins testing this as a beta coder. (All it means is that we see this feature on our board before anyone else hyeah: )

Ok so preliminaries done with, lets hit at what this is and how it helps.
For starters i will paste here from the faq

Trackback
Trackback enables you to notify another site that you wrote something related to what is written on a specific page, even if you don't have an explicit link to this page. This improves the chances of contributors to this page noticing that you gave them credit for something, or that you improved upon something they wrote, or something similar. With pingback and trackback, websites are interconnected. Think of them as the equivalents of acknowledgements and references at the end of an academic paper, or a chapter in a textbook.

Trackback Mechanism

Many times Site B will link back to Site A in acknowledgement for the Trackback. Trackback does not require for Site A to physically link to Site B.

Pingback
In contrast to Trackback, Pingback lets you notify contributors to a page's content if you link to the page (or a subset of the page - for Forums, this is a post). If the links included in a post you write on a forum (or blog) lead to a page which is pingback-enabled, then the contributor to that page gets a notification in the form of a pingback that you linked to the page or a subset within the page.

Pingback Mechanism

Many times Site B will link back to Site A in acknowledgement for the Trackback. Pingback requires that Site A physically links to Site B.
​

So what does this mean?
Ok now that you have some idea about this, lets give a layman's perspective. What we want at the end of the day is that when we quote some other sites content(usually a blog or news site, the site gets an acknowledgement that we used it as a source plus that site also acknowledges us that we have used its content. Its a win win situation for all. we both generate backlinks which help not only direct traffic to each other but also generates backlinks which is loved by google(will increase our pr)

If you want to see a demo of how this looks like when lots of people have linked back check out my thread : http://www.techenclave.com/forums/the-mosquito-mega-catch-73352.html

in that a link is given to a site: OhGizmo! » The Mosquito Mega-Catch

if you go to that site and scroll down on the comments you will see a comment(what i posted in that thread with a link to us.
here is a screen also
View attachment 1756
Now same way we linked to them, someone can also link to us. When that happens at the bootm you will see linkbacks to our page.
it will look something like this
View attachment 1755
Now that you know what it is... how to use it

well its very simple. whenever you are quoting some other sites content(ofcourse that site must haver the trackback enabled.. all blog sites and most news sites lik cnn.com will have this) you use the trackball url from them and put it at the bottom of your new thread.

View attachment 1757

just enter the trackball url above and then post. (plz note the post might take slightly longer to post as the trackback info is sent)
Thats it
If you have any questions feel free to ask them here and do use this feature as much as you can.

thanks

 

[medpal]

very nice safin.

three cheers for you and TE team.

btw is it the same link which mentions permalink and a number in right hand top corner of every post.

i noticed it yesterday and i was short on time so could not ask or verify.

 

[Safin]

yes permalink is for other site owners to link our articles.

 

[shirish]

I wish u had given some much more suggestions. In the second last image u should have also highlighted the linkback as I fail to find it. Perhaps an e.g. of what the trackback url looks like. Does it look the same as a hyperlink or does it have some slightly different wording or something. It sounds something similar to the semantic web being talked about but need more clarity.

The permalink AFAI understand is something which makes a permanent link/hook to the story. In most of the web-sites they have some kind of database & the URI address changes as new news breaks in. Permalink ensures that even if the story moves in the archives or something one is able to link to it & see it irrespectively. This is provided the web-master has trackback enabled. Similar perhaps how web IP addresses are resolved to the human-readable format URI/URL we give. Am I right or wrong?

 

[Safin]

Basically sending a trackback is a way of informing a particular website that you are acknowledging that you are discussing content similar to that featured on the original source page. However, when sending a pingback you are acknowledging that you are actually linking directly to the thread/blog in question.

This allows to create a network of interlinked websites which are all relevant and related to one another because they are discussing a similar entity. Google likes relevant linkbacks You dont have to have made an exact copy of the website you are sending a "trackback" too, you could have just discussed some of the content featured on the page, or perhaps you felt that the general theme of your post relates to that of the article you are sending a trackback too.

Also, you need to make sure that the website you are referencing actually supporting trackback and pingback functionality, or else your website will not be displayed on their website as a "trackback/pingback", thus making the link exchange only one way. All popular blogging formats support trackback and pingback functionality, and now with vBSEO vBulletin powered forums can also support this link exchange methodology - which should hopefully create a more link exchange receptive forum community to rival that of the "blog-o-sphere".

quoted some more help text from Michael over at staff-lounge. Hope this clarifies thing a bit more sorry i am really outta time these days to explain in detail just yet. If you have any doubts/queries contact DipDude. He should be able to help you out.