Why I Won't Be Getting a Pingback for This Link
by Antone Roundy | 6 Comments | Blogging, Link Building
Over at Daily Blog Tips today, Daniel Scocco fielded a question today about whether to approve Pingbacks:
The purpose of having trackbacks and pingbacks is to foster conversations among bloggers. By inter-linking the posts that are referencing each other it becomes easier to follow the different opinions and takes on specific issues.
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I think having trackbacks and pingbacks does add value to your visitors, but most of that value is lost if most of your trackbacks are coming from spam and scraper sites. Given that this is probably what's going to happen today, I would simply turn them off.
I can't say I like the fact that I'm not going to get a pingback for linking to his post. But I certainly understand his point of view.
This is another case of how people who selfishly steal others' resources hurt so many people. I'm sure there are some out there who think, "If I install Deep Link Engine (or a similar plugin) and use it to get backlinks, it helps me. And a few outbound links to blog posts that aren't that closely related won't really hurt anybody."
Baloney, to put it mildly.
It's exactly that kind of thinking (in conjunction with all the spammers who know they're hurting people but just don't care) that's going to keep me from getting a pingback link for a legitimate link.
And it's exactly that kind of thinking that's going to prevent anyone who visits Daily Blog Tips from finding this addition to that conversation.
I don't have the "problem" of getting so many comments and pingbacks that I can't moderate them, so I've kept them turned on here. To Daniel's recommendation, I'd add the words, "If moderating spam becomes too much of a pain..." Otherwise, leave them on.
And before you decide it's too much of a pain, try an anti-spam plugin like Spam Karma and see if that gets it under control.
Why don't you use Akismet or WP-Spam Free plugin. I personally use them myself and love it.(Note: I haven't tried Spam Karma yet. From what I've read, it sounds like it does a lot of the things I was imagining wanting to do. It hasn't been updated for a few years, so it may need some work...which I'm putting on my "maybe to-do list").
February 25th, 2011 at 10:22 am
Yeah, it's too bad with all those spammers who are ruining it for honest people :(
Funny, you should write this blog post now. My husband just asked me yesterday, what tracking was, and I explained what its purpose was, but added that it was mostly used for spam nowadays. Sad.
February 25th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
I have been using 'Deep Link Engine' on some of my blogs thinking I was going to get pingbacks from related sites. I vet them manually to make sure they have some relevance. As far as I can see the links that are posted on my blog have some value to my readers because they are related to my topic.
I've no wish to do harm or spam, so what is the flaw in my thinking?
February 25th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Michael,
If you're making sure that the links really have relevance and value, then I don't suppose that's doing any harm.
I'm just saying that in my experience, most of the people who use such plugins are posting all sorts of links to sites that aren't relevant, simply based on keyword matches. I don't think I've ever seen a link from such a plugin to my blogs that was really relevant.
February 26th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
I have had the same experience as you and Britt, that if you allow trackbacks on your site you just get a bunch of spam.
April 8th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Yep. It seems difficult to get the traction you want in SEO by simply doing things of value.
There are so many SEO tools and tactics that add absolutely no value to user experience. It's crazy.
I've sometimes thought that I'm crazy by refusing to use profile generators and highly-touted auto-commenters, etc etc ad nauseum.
The fear shouts that we'll fall further and further behind the folks who are willing to do "whatever it takes".
Nevertheless, recently I've recommitted to sticking to practices which are congruent with my desire to provide real value to my clients.
I trust it'll be blessed and be enough.
Sabrina
April 10th, 2011 at 10:52 am
Why don't you use Akismet or WP-Spam Free plugin. I personally use them myself and love it.