SANTA MONICA, CA — At Master Google, we always appreciate comments that let us know what we can do to answer your questions pertaining to SEO. Of course, the best way to get advice that is specifically tailored for your business is to fill out a contact us form, but we are always happy to share our general expertise.
A recent commenter posed this question: “Do Trackbacks and Pingbacks matter when it comes to SEO?” The short answer is yes, they most certainly do matter, to varying degrees. The long answer includes an explanation of what Trackbacks and Pingbacks are, and their overall place in your SEO efforts.
Let’s start with trackbacks. A trackback is simply an automated notifier sent to someone else’s blog any time you reference their blog in a post. By sending a trackback, you are creating a link back to your blog, which takes a very small amount of time to do when considering the benefits of it.
Image Courtesy of ITinfoOz.comWhile displayed quite humorously in the image above from a recent post by ITinfoOz.com, the subject of trackbacks is a serious one, because the opportunity for generating traffic is there, and is being underutilized, according to entrepreneur Matthew Bredel. Bredel has seen the results of using trackbacks as part of his overall search engine optimization and social media marketing efforts on his blog.“A trackback is a super comment. The way that a trackback works, is instead of a going to a blog and posting a comment on someone else’s blog, you post a reply on your own website and post a trackback comment. Unless they don’t allow follows, but you still establish authority,” Bredel says.
While trackbacks certainly are more limited with most blogs not allowing follows, Bredel is correct that doing so does help to establish your authority. Blogs also appreciate your interaction.
Now, on to Pingbacks. Pingbacks have more to do with author control and authenticity, as explained well by an SEO news reporter for Beanstalk-Inc.com in a recent blog post. Pingbacks were originally the response to trackbacks lacking authenticity. Pingbacks make it easy to notify a blog of your use of it just by posting its permalink in your blog post. Of course, there is some controversy over which is really better: pingbacks or trackbacks.
“Some feel that trackbacks are superior because the readers of Person A’s blog can at least see some of what Person B has to say before deciding if they want to read more and follow the link to the orginal blog source,” Beanstalk-Inc.com’s SEO News Reporter says. “Others feel that pingbacks are superior as they create a verifiable connection between posts. Pingbacks are akin to having remote comments.”
Whether using both trackback and pingback methods, or not having tried either one on a conscious level yet, our CEO, Ali Husayni, has advice for the business owner who isn’t yet using Master Google’s services for their SEO efforts. Husayni recommends his book, Google SEO Secrets revealed, as a good starting point for your entire website, including your blog. Still, Husanyni recommends professional help.
“Engaging in all of these techniques requires months of hard labor, a complete understanding of SEO and, of course, cash. Nevertheless, we’ve been able to transform local, small businesses into large-international ones in a matter of a few months by practicing what we preach,” Husayni says. “Oftentimes, smart business people who have substantial financial backing will delegate important tasks to professionals, instead of spending years mastering what someone else already knows and taking away the focus from their business.”
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As a blog enthusiast, I’ve tried out all three of these. I find Tumblr visually stimulating, but for SEO optimization, it seems Blogger (powered by Google) and WordPress are more content heavy and content friendly. All three platforms let users upload posts from their phones, schedule posts, and view statistics. While Blogger and Tumblr show Google Analytics and allow third party tools, WordPress only shows users WordPress Stats.