WordPress Pingbacks and Trackbacks Explained, Plus Why to Disable Them

If you’re a perceptive user, you may have noticed a setting in your dashboard relating to WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks. However, there’s a good chance you have no idea what these techniques are, or why they’re controversial.

In this article, we’re going to start out by explaining what WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks are and discussing their pros and cons. After that we’ll show you how you can disable both on your own website. Then we’ll wrap it up with some frequently asked questions.

Let’s take a look!

An introduction to WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks

The first thing we need to do is clearly define the terms “pingback” and “trackback”. While they are similar in many ways, the two are still distinct techniques.

What are trackbacks?

A trackback is a notification that WordPress sends to an external site when you link to it in your content. Let’s say that you’ve just published a new blog post on dog training tips, which includes a link to another website that contains some solid advice for your readers.

In this scenario, you could send a trackback “ping” to that site, in order to get the owner’s attention. That person could then choose to approve the trackback. This would display an excerpt of your post and a link to your site in their comments section.

What are pingbacks?

Pingbacks in WordPress have a very similar goal, but they work a little differently. In fact, they were actually created to be a better version of trackbacks, in order to resolve some of the problems with the technique (which we’ll look at shortly).

The key thing to understand is that while trackbacks are sent manually, pingbacks are automatic. To illustrate this, we’ll go back to our earlier example. Let’s say you have pingbacks set up on your blog, and you just published that article about dog training tips (linking to the same external website as before).

In this case, a pingback would immediately be sent to the site you linked to – as long as it also has pingbacks enabled. Consequently, that site would automatically check to verify that the pingback originated from your post (and wasn’t some type of spam). It would then display it as a simple link in the comments section. In most cases, pingbacks won’t include an excerpt from the post in question, though this depends on the theme that a site is using.

From your perspective, the trackback and the pingback work in a very similar way. The most vital differences are “under the hood” – the communication technologies used are different. However, it isn’t necessary to understand all the technical details in order to get a sense for the advantages and drawbacks of using these techniques.

An example of what pingbacks/trackbacks look like

The pros and cons of using WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks on your site ✅ ❌

In order to understand why we recommend that you disable pingbacks and trackbacks, let’s discuss the pros and cons.

Pros 👍

It’s easy to see why so many people have used both pingbacks and trackbacks in the past. The potential benefits of these technologies include:

• Increasing backlinks to your own site, driving traffic your way and potentially improving your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
• Making connections with related sites, and encouraging them to share your content by showing your willingness to promote theirs.
• Offering more value to your readers, by introducing them to other content they may find useful.

Cons 👎

The biggest issue with trackbacks is that they soon became used to send huge amounts of spam. As trackbacks can be sent manually to any site, spammers use them to get their links posted on as much content as possible.

Keeping these spam trackbacks off your site requires manually checking each one since there’s no other way to verify that they aren’t fake. Naturally, the time spent moderating these trackbacks could be better used elsewhere. It also makes them a lot less valuable than they could be in a theoretical sense.

As we mentioned earlier, pingbacks were designed mainly to resolve this spam problem. That’s why they work automatically, and require verification before they can be posted. In addition, they won’t even be sent unless both blogs have enabled pingbacks.

However, pingbacks soon fell victim to the same downsides as trackbacks. Many spammers were able to easily overcome the protections put into place. That resulted in a lot of fake and malicious pingbacks. Again, this means that sites with this feature enabled generally have to spend a lot of time moderating the resulting comments.

In addition, you can end up with something called “self-pings”. If you link to another post or page on your own site, the pingback feature will send a notification (as though you were linking to an external source). This isn’t very useful and can quickly become an annoyance, although you can eliminate this problem with a free plugin like No Self Pings. 👇

Most sites should disable WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks 🚫 (here’s how to do it)

There’s been a lot of controversy over the years as to whether using pingbacks and trackbacks is worth the downsides. These days, however, it’s widely recommended that you avoid both techniques.

At the end of the day, using WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks tends to result in a lot of spam and wasted time. Even if they can provide a few benefits, there are better ways to drive traffic to your site.

In addition, very few people actually use these technologies in a legitimate way at this point. This means that, more so than in the past, you’re likely to get a lot more fake pingbacks and trackbacks than legitimate ones.

Fortunately, disabling both on your own site is a simple matter. In your WordPress dashboard, you can navigate to Settings > Discussion:

Here, you’ll want to deselect the first two options:

• Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article
• Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles

This will prevent your site from creating and receiving pingbacks and trackbacks. As a result, you should have an easier time keeping your comments section under control. Plus, you’ll free up time that can be devoted to more effective audience-building strategies.

WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks FAQs 🙋

By now you probably have a solid understanding of what WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks are. But, in case you didn’t actually read the article and are just skimming to find some quick information about these features, this FAQ section will help you out. Even if you did read everything, this will give you a solid recap of the concepts we covered.

What is pingback WordPress?

In WordPress, a pingback is a feature that allows you to automatically notify another website or blog when you link to its content on your site. When you link to another website in a WordPress post, the website’s server will receive a notification that someone has linked to their content. The website may choose to display this notification as a comment on their post. This is called a pingback.

What is trackback WordPress?

In WordPress, a trackback is a way to manually notify another website or blog that you have linked to their content in your post. When you link to another website in a WordPress post, you can send a trackback to that website. The trackback will contain a short excerpt of your post and a link to the post where you linked to their content. The website’s server will receive this trackback and may choose to display it as a comment on their post.

What’s the difference between pingbacks and trackbacks in WordPress?

Trackbacks are similar to pingbacks, but they work differently behind the scenes. Trackbacks require manual approval from the recipient website, while pingbacks are automatically generated by WordPress.

Should I allow pingbacks and trackbacks on my blog?

Allowing pingbacks and trackbacks on your blog is a personal decision, and while there are some pros, the cons generally outweigh them. If you do decide to allow pingbacks and trackbacks on your blog, be sure to monitor them closely for spam. Approve only those that add value to your content. If you choose to disable pingbacks and trackbacks, you can still link to other websites in your content using hyperlinks.

Do pingbacks help SEO?

Pingbacks themselves do not have a direct impact on SEO, but they can indirectly contribute to improved search engine rankings by building backlinks to your site. However, it’s important to note that the quality and relevance of the linking site also plays a role in determining the impact on SEO. Spammy or low-quality backlinks (like the kind that are often generated by pingbacks) can actually harm your search engine rankings. In short, unless you plan to do some heavy manual monitoring, using pingbacks as a way of getting backlinks is not a recommended SEO strategy.

Skip the pingbacks and trackbacks! ⏭️

Pingbacks and trackbacks do have benefits in theory, but there are plenty of reasons why they’re rarely used these days. Ultimately, the downsides of both outweigh the potential for a slight boost to traffic and visibility.

Have you ever used pingbacks and trackbacks on a WordPress site, and what was the result? Share your experiences with us in the comments section below!