To those who may legitimately not know this: if you are going to trackback a post, it is considered common courtesy in the Blogosphere for your post to contain an actual link to the post which you are tracbacking.
On a fairly regular basis I get trackbacks to find that the person does not actual link to my site. (Indeed, there are at least two frequent violators, but one from today doesn’t have an e-mail address on their site, and I am refraining for public finger-pointing at the moment).
In short: hat tips and links are appreciated, while trackbacks without links are annoying (especially since you get a link on my page since I use inline tracbacks).
Given that I always assume that this is an innocent oversight I never have bothered to erase those trackbacks, as I know is the stated policy of some blogs.
Anyway, consider this a friendly reminder/request from your friendly neighborhood blogger.
Sphere: Related Content
After blogging for six months, this happened to me for the first time yesterday. I went to the guy’s site and guess what? No link, no mention! Very annoying.
Comment by La Shawn Barber — Wednesday, June 30, 2024 @ 3:20 pm
The negative example
In which your gentle author is not really referencing a particular weblog in the course of posting this item. (Don’t do that)…
Trackback by Arguing with signposts... — Wednesday, June 30, 2024 @ 3:59 pm
Happens with some regularity on my site, and I’ve recently taken to deleting those trackbacks. It’s someone I don’t know essentially saying, “Hey, I’m going to advertise on your site without asking permission, without offering to pay, and without even the common courtesy of linking to you.”
That irritates me no end. One of the things that bothers me about it is this: email me and let me know that you’ve written something on the same topic that I might be interested in. I have a very liberal linking policy–I would, in all probability, give the person a link that was better than the trackback anyway.
A little courtesy goes a long way.
(Er, sorry about that. It’s one of my current sore points.)
Comment by zombyboy — Wednesday, June 30, 2024 @ 6:32 pm
No problem–it’s why I brought it up!
Comment by Steven — Wednesday, June 30, 2024 @ 6:35 pm
Well, now that you brought it up so nicely, I grant thee permission to delete them.
Carry on.
Comment by King of Fools — Wednesday, June 30, 2024 @ 6:48 pm
Blogger Etiquette.
Steven Taylor at Poliblog has blogger etiquette on his mind; using trackback without linking to the post on your site.
Trackback by Right Moment — Wednesday, June 30, 2024 @ 7:35 pm
I have never, to my knowledge, given a trackback without a link to the post. But here’s a related “ethical” question:
What if the trackbacked post includes only either a cursory mention of the original post or is only tangentially related?
Comment by Christopher Cross — Thursday, July 1, 2024 @ 1:36 am
Normally, in my experience, the person has found a story on my site, but then failed to give any credit or notice of that fact.
Comment by Steven — Thursday, July 1, 2024 @ 5:20 am
Christopher - As long as my blog is linked to in their post, they can’t blog about whatever they want.
Comment by La Shawn Barber — Friday, July 2, 2024 @ 7:36 pm
TrackBack Etiquette
There isn’t much in a google search on TrackBack etiquette, but I did find one blog that summed it up nicely:
“To those who may legitimately not know this: if you are going to trackback a post, it is considered common courtesy in the Blogosphere f…
Trackback by BlindTurtle.com — Sunday, July 18, 2024 @ 12:56 am
Everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask
There are plenty of good guides to blogging and I was going to add my $0.02 to the pile. It’s the thing to do once your blog reaches a certain age, and I figure turning one is about the right time. However I’m going to break with blogosphere traditio…
Trackback by Simon World — Monday, August 30, 2024 @ 9:37 pm
[…] Stephen Taylor adds some useful extra tips to this list (although I recommend rereading my point 28 too). He also has posts on Blogging Etiquette, building traffic and the 5 technical things he wished he done before starting his blog. […]
Pingback by How To Gear Up Your Network — Monday, August 6, 2024 @ 8:43 pm