Track back

A trackback is a very effective way for any blogger to boost the number of visits to his or her site. If you want to react to a post by another blogger, you might think the easiest way is to publish your comment on the blog in question. If you do, though, your readers won’t be able to read that comment, and how will they know that you’ve left a message on another blog? The other option is time-consuming: if you comment on the post on your own blog, it means you have to add a link on your blog to that post, so that your readers will know the background to your comment.

The trackback offers a number of advantages: you’ll be “feeding” your blog with a new comment and, at the same time, creating, or strengthening, relations with another blogger. And that may be the most important aspect. At first sight, the intentions of anyone using a trackback are altruistic, as they promote the posts of others and generate discussion with them or other commentators. In reality, the intention might be somewhat less noble, as the blogger is also hoping to attract new visitors to his own site. In fact, it’s give and take – when Blogger A is cited by Blogger B, he will generally react by commenting on one of Blogger B’s posts. The internet has adopted the same code of conduct that operates in the real world: you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. In the language of primates, it’s called grooming. Monkeys groom, scratch and stroke each other to bond and to affirm their place on the social scale, and, as between equals, the grooming has to be reciprocal. So, if trackback works, it’s probably because it facilitates this reciprocity between bloggers.