OK, So I’m an Idiot. I Don’t Get Typepad Trackbacks

by Jay Thompson on October 31, 2006

I’ll admit it. I can’t figure out trackbacks in blogs running on Typepad. Is it just me? Am I really this dense?

If I link to a fellow WordPress blog, the link and a little snippet just magically pops up in that WP blog comment. I do nothing other than make an active link to a blog post. (I assume this only works if the blog author has “allow pings” enabled. But why wouldn’t you?)

Typepad blogs (and Blogger/Blogspot too for the most part) however, just drive me crazy. Linking to one of them appears to do nothing. I’ve tried copying/pasting the Typepad “trackback URL” into the appropriate “Send trackbacks to:” field in my WP editor. Sometimes (but no where close to all the time) a link will show up in the blog I’m attempting to trackback to. But many times, absolutely nothing happens.

I don’t understand. I *want* to link back to these blogs. I suspect I may be missing something fundamental, and someone is going to say, “Geeze, that Phoenix real estate dude is a dufus!”

Right now, that’s fine. I just want to figure out the stinking trackbacks once and for all.

So I expose my dufusness here for all the world to see. Someone please enlighten me!

[tags]trackbacks, dufus, wordpress, typepad, blogger, blogspot[/tags]

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Teresa Boardman

You make me smile. I thought I was the only idot that didn't get it. I even read the online hlep which means I was reaaly desperate. Then i moved onto bigger and better things like trying to decide what to write each day. A lot of work for me!

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Tommie W. Gibson

I read the title to your post and thought to myself "great I'm finally going to get this figured out"..... instead I notice that I'm not the only one mistified with trackbacks. The comments read like an AA meeting so I'll just stand and introduce myself, hopefully someone like Mary McKnight will be by soon and throw us a rope.

Hi my name is Tommie, and I have a problem with trackbacks.

Kristal Kraft

OK so even after reading all this I am still in the dark. Like the IT guy who said, "some things can't be fixed" guess that's my brain...

Jay - The Phoenix Re

Great question Mo! I did have buygilberthomes pointing here.... not sure when it stopped. Hmmmmm............

I'm on hold with GoDaddy support as I type.... (.....note to self, in the future, push # when asked if you want to hold without music....)

Well, turns out it's my fault. I had a bunch of "credits" at godaddy for free hosting. Always hoping to get something for nothing, I slapped a free credit on BGH.com. That turned off the forwarding to PREG.com.

So we turned off the BGH hosting, reset the nameservers, and in 24 - 48 hours after it "propogates", BGH will return to pointing to PREG.com.

THANKS for catching this!!

And a plug here for GoDaddy... I love these guys. Some "pros" say they are a lousy host. They've been great to me. Their customer support is top notch. And they've got great commercials...

Maureen Francis

Ironically enough, I tried to do trackbacks with GrowABrain (typepad) and the Tomato (typepad) this week. I got errors on both of them. I thought it was me too.

And a question for you, Jay. Why aren't you pointing buygilberthomes somewhere (like here)?

Thanks guys. Glad to hear it's not just me!

Todd Tarson

I remember when I was decided to launch my blog that I ran across a how to article on some non RE related blog. It said trackbacking is a great way to gain readership among other blogs and IT WAS VERY EASY TO DO.

Well, I started my blog all right... but that trackback stuff being easy... umm... not so much.

Pat Kitano

Hi Jay, I'm also a mystified dufus when it comes to trackbacks... I was so surprised that my posts show up automatically on Wordpress blogs that I, duuh, commented about it (like a dufus) in one of Greg Swann's posts saying, like "hey, how did you do that?"...

Anyway, I didn't think trackbacks were being used any more because Inever received one... until last night! Thanks Jay... now I'll figure out what it does next.

Jim Cronin

TP trackbacking is not streamlined. It is for sure one of their weaknesses.
I know, I am a TypePad user... some days I wish I was not.

Jon Ernest

Jay,

You're not alone. It took me about 3 months to figure out why, when I clicked on my RSS link, the page kept comming up "page not found" I would keep bugging my business partner (our IT guy) asking him to fix it, and he kept replying "some things just can't be fixed" with a grin.

I still hate him :)

John Schneider

Jay, I'm going to take another crack at typepad trackbacks -yep my blog is on typepad - though when I've gone there in the past I found lots of reasons to put it off 'til manana.

Greg Swann

You're doing it right. What you can't control is how the linked weblog handles trackbacks/pingbacks. They may be moderated or turned off altogether. For my own part, I've stopped bothering with it.