In the early days of blogging and digital marketing, trackbacks were a popular tool for websites to communicate with each other, acknowledge content, and build relationships. Essentially, trackbacks allowed a website to notify another site that it had referenced or linked to its content. This allowed the creation of networks of related content and boosted traffic between sites — which would normally have been a good thing, if it wasn’t for the rise in spam. The malicious use of trackbacks, coupled with the development of alternative technologies, means that they aren’t as widely used in modern marketing.
Let’s explore trackbacks in a little more detail, and what today’s marketers tend to use in their place.
Understanding Website Trackbacks
Let’s say that a blogger writes a post and includes a link to an article from another website. When they do this, they can manually send a trackback to notify the original site, which usually appears in the comments section or a designated area of the original article. It also shows a snippet of the referring content along with a link back to the blog post.
Trackbacks serve multiple purposes.
- Acknowledgment: They act as a digital “shout-out” to the original content creator, giving them credit for their work.
- Communication: Trackbacks allow websites to notify each other about references or mentions.
- Traffic Generation: If a trackback is approved and displayed, it can generate referral traffic from the original site to the one that sent the trackback.
- SEO Benefits: Trackbacks can create valuable backlinks, which are beneficial for search engine optimization (SEO).
The Decline of Trackbacks: A History of Abuse and Spam
Despite their initial popularity, trackbacks became notorious for being exploited by spammers. The process of sending a trackback does not require the approval of the original website owner, making it a prime target for abuse. Many unsavory marketers and spammers would send fake trackbacks to thousands of sites as a means of gaining backlinks to boost their SEO. This resulted in websites receiving a flood of irrelevant or harmful links, which ultimately degraded their user experiences and harmed their own SEO standings.
Consequently, website owners and bloggers began to disable trackbacks entirely. Content management systems that initially supported trackbacks (like WordPress) now provide options to disable them by default.
Over time, the industry largely shifted away from trackbacks due to these vulnerabilities, settling on a pingback as a safer alternative.
What Are Pingbacks?
While trackbacks are a manual process where the sender must notify the receiving website, pingbacks are automated and built into blogging platforms. When a blogger links to another blog post, the system automatically sends a pingback to the original post’s author, who can then approve or reject it. Pingbacks have a more secure verification process, which checks whether the link actually exists to significantly reduce spam.
Pingbacks also display the originating link more cleanly, without including snippets of text, which reduces the potential for inappropriate content being displayed. Because of these improvements, many marketers and bloggers have preferred using pingbacks over trackbacks, especially with the use of SEO website plugins (HubSpot has a few to share) that can help cut down on potential spam.
The Current Role of Website Trackbacks (or Lack Thereof)
The use of trackbacks in today’s digital marketing is rare, and it’s easy to understand why.
High Risk of Spam
Trackbacks still carry a high risk of being used for spam. Most marketers are not willing to deal with the website maintenance required to filter out low-quality or irrelevant links.
Lack of Control
Unlike curated guest posts or manual link exchanges, trackbacks offer little control over the quality and relevance of content that links back to a given site. This can dilute a brand’s authority if low-quality content is allowed to link back.
SEO Risks
Accepting spammy trackbacks can negatively affect a site’s SEO. Google’s algorithm penalizes sites associated with misleading or low-quality backlinks, which can result in lower search rankings.
Alternative Strategies
Digital marketers today have a wide range of more effective and secure options for content promotion and link building, such as guest blogging, social media sharing, influencer marketing, and direct outreach. These methods offer greater control, more reliable results, and stronger relationships with other content creators.
How Are Trackbacks Used Today?
Despite the decline in trackbacks, they have not entirely disappeared. Some bloggers and legacy websites may still use them in a more controlled environment where community and content relevance are tightly managed. In such cases, trackbacks can still be a valuable way to foster engagement and build networks.
Modern Approaches to Building Links and Relationships
For most marketers, the focus has shifted to more modern and effective methods of link and relationship building.
Guest Blogging: Writing guest posts for reputable websites can create high-quality backlinks and establish authority.
Social Media Engagement: Sharing content on social media platforms can drive traffic and foster organic sharing and engagement.
Influencer Collaborations: Partnering with influencers in your specialty can expand reach and credibility.
Direct Outreach and Collaboration: Reaching out to other websites for collaboration or link exchanges ensures that links are relevant and mutually beneficial.
Website Trackbacks vs. Pingbacks — Which Do You Use?
While website trackbacks were once a useful tool for online marketing and building connections between websites, their popularity has waned. Marketers now favor more reliable and secure methods like pingbacks for content promotion and relationship building.
The question is, do you know which ones your site currently uses?
If you’d like assistance managing them, as well as other key aspects of your website and SEO, we want to help! Click the button below to meet with one of our Fractional CMOs and learn which marketing services are appropriate for your needs.
