Does a site have to be using blog software to utilize the trackback feature on their site?

February 22, 2006 3:06 PM

Does a site have to be using blog software to utilize the trackback feature? I thought the answer was yes, but then I saw that PR Web has just added Trackbacks to their releases. So what is the secret of the Trackback?
posted by nramsey to computers & internet (3 comments total)

All you have to do is have a script running on your server that accepts trackback pings, adds them to a list (be it a database or a flat file), and optionally, publishes them. Six Apart offer a standalone trackback script for download here. And Kevin Aylward has his own standalone trackback implementation.

As for trackback autodiscovery, all that means is that a standard bit of invisible html code (RDF?) is present on the page for trackback-capable tools to detect.

In other words, blogs popularized trackback, but the technology is a blog-independent link notification/link advertisement mechanism.
posted by evariste at 3:12 PM on February 22, 2006

Looking at the link:


<!-- 
                 <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
                     xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
                     xmlns:trackback="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/">
                     <rdf:Description
                        rdf:about="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/2/prweb349374.htm"
                        dc:identifier="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/2/prweb349374.htm"
                        trackback:ping="http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/Q3Jhcy1Ib3JyLVNxdWEtSGFsZi1IYWxmLVplcm8=" />
                     </rdf:RDF>
 -->
                That's the magic stuff that makes trackback autodiscovery happen. You can't see it without viewing the page source because it's sneakily hidden in an HTML comment. All you need is template-based content management software to generate that, and I imagine an outfit like PRWeb that puts out such a large quantity of words has to have a CMS. Blogs are just a specialized form of CMS.
posted by evariste at 3:16 PM on February 22, 2006

pingpr.php is the name of the script on their server that accepts trackback pings from your blogging software. Presumably, it then publishes them somewhere near the press release.
posted by evariste at 3:17 PM on February 22, 2006