Pretty much every blogger knows what a comment is, but are less certain about “pingbacks”. In this blog, we’ll be answering two questions: 1) What is a pingback? and 2) Are pingbacks good for SEO?
What Is a Pingback?
A pingback is a special, WordPress-exclusive comment that’s created when you link to another blog post, as long as the other blog is set to accept pingbacks. Similar to comments, pingbacks are a way in which one blogger can link his or her blog to another blog. For instance, if another Wordpress site links or references your article, you will get a pingback notification that will display as a comment on the blog post they linked to.
WordPress describes them as a form of ‘automated comments’. Think of it like this:
- Person A publishes a post.
- Person B publishes her own post, including a link to Person A’s post.
- WordPress.com automatically sends a pingback to Person A’s post, letting Person A know that someone has linked to them.
- Person A’s post then displays a special type of comment linking to Person B’s post. Pingbacks appear mixed in with any other comments on the post.
How Do I Pingback to Another Blog?
Almost like magic, pingbacks are automatically created when you link to another WordPress blog. You may even be pingbacking already without even realizing it!
Follow these steps to enable pingbacks on your WordPress blog.
Are Pingbacks Good for Your Blog’s SEO?
We’ve said this many times before, but getting more links to your blog is one of the best ways to improve your SEO. Since pingbacks are created by having external links on another person’s blog, they are directly related to your SEO. So yes, pingbacks are good for your blog’s SEO.
One caution regarding pingbacks is that spammers can abuse them, just like the spam comments. Low-quality pingbacks could eventually hurt the integrity of your blog, so we recommend setting up notifications for pingbacks that will enable you to approve or deny each request. For professional bloggers, the best way to use pingbacks is to display only authentic pingbacks and monitor new requests often.
