Pingbacks

[somarco]

Are pingbacks good or bad?

I am getting what seems (to me at least) a lot of pingbacks from my blog.

One ties to a somewhat related blog on health related issues, and all it says is "Bob Vineyard posted an interesting piece on" . . . with a pingback link.

At first I was approving, then I noticed this person is not creating original content, just "borrowing" from other sites. A lot of my stuff is linked to other reports with my own (original) comments wrapping the quotes.

This AM I got a pingback but no referring URL, so I have no way of knowing who is referencing my stuff or what they are doing with it.

Are pingbacks good or bad and when do you approve, when do you flush as spam?

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Good question. I have always deleted them as a spam. But I wonder if that is the right thing to do.

 

[arnguy]

You guys should check with al3 the "geekmeister."

 

[Guest]

You guys should check with al3 the "geekmeister."

Not me. I have no idea what a "pingback" is.

In my world "ping" is a

"utility [that] uses the ICMP protocol's mandatory ECHO_REQUEST datagram to elicit an ICMP ECHO_RESPONSE from a host or gateway.

ECHO_REQUEST datagrams (``pings'') have an IP and ICMP header, followed by a ``struct timeval'' and then an arbitrary number of ``pad'' bytes used to fill out the packet.

We use "ping" to see if an IP is alive.

You can go to a terminal window and enter:

ping -c5 google.com

and get:

PING google.com (209.85.171.100): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.85.171.100: icmp_seq=0 ttl=243 time=30.105 ms
64 bytes from 209.85.171.100: icmp_seq=1 ttl=243 time=30.325 ms
64 bytes from 209.85.171.100: icmp_seq=2 ttl=243 time=30.548 ms
64 bytes from 209.85.171.100: icmp_seq=3 ttl=243 time=30.514 ms
64 bytes from 209.85.171.100: icmp_seq=4 ttl=243 time=30.448 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 30.105/30.388/30.548/0.161 ms

I have a feeling you are talking about something else.

 

[somarco]

Not the same.

Ping is done in a DOS window using the tracert command.
tracert 208.61.111.14

Pingbacks have something to do with folks who want information on blogposts . . . I think

 

[fostever]

Ping is a line of golf products. So I think ya all got it wrong. Ask Greensky.

 

[somarco]

Ping is a line of golf products.

It is also the front part of pongball, but I think that is not quite right either.

 

[Guest]

Not the same.

Ping is done in a DOS window using the tracert command.
tracert 208.61.111.14

Pingbacks have something to do with folks who want information on blogposts . . . I think

It is my understanding that ping just "hits" the IP to see if it is "live" while traceroute (in unix) actually traces and reports back the "hops" to the final IP destination.

It has been a long time since my Unix hacking days. My Mac has some of these command-line programs as well as network sniffers but unless I'm trying to track down a specific IP I have little use for them. These days there are websites and well as free GUI network tools to do all this stuff. I think these days a 15 year old could hack into the average unprotected home/office network. In the old days you had to actually KNOW something!

Any of you guys watch NCIS? All the stuff Abby and McGee can do... is real... but you gotta be really, really, really good... and fortunately damn few people are... and after a while they burn out. Hacking is more about waiting for a hit... than anything else. Hell, I think most of these tools were written by hackers while they were sitting around waiting for a sniffer to find an opening. Also the encryption routines are much better today then they were in "my day." If they weren't, we'd all have been in a "nuclear winter" a long time ago!

 

[somarco]

May have found the answer to my question.

Most blogs have a method to allow visitors to leave comments. There are also nifty ways for authors of other blogs to leave comments without even visiting the blog! Called "pingbacks" or "trackbacks", they can inform other bloggers whenever they cite an article from another site in their own articles. All this ensures that online conversations can be maintained painlessly among various site users and websites.

Pingback lets you notify the author of an article if you link to his article (article on a blog, of course). If the links you include in an article you write on a blog lead to a blog which is pingback-enabled, then the author of that blog gets a notification in the form of a pingback that you linked to his article

.

When used properly, trackbacks and pingbacks are an excellent way to build links and traffic to your blog, as well as building relationships with other bloggers.
WordPress takes trackback to a new level by allowing pingbacks.

Pingbacks allow you to notify a weblog of your entry just by posting its permalink directly in the content of your blog entry. No special trackback link necessary.

To enable pinging URLs in the blog entry, make sure there is a check mark next to “Attempt to notify any Weblogs linked to from the article (slows down posting.)” in the “Options->Discussion” section of the WordPress admin panel.
You can generally assume that most WordPress blogs will support the pingback feature, however, it can be disabled or moderated based by the blog owner.

If you want to be certain pingbacks are supported, you need only look in the HTML coding for a line similar to:
<link rel="pingback" href="..." />

If the site has pings enabled, a link with a brief sampling of the text around it will appear on their blog.
Successful trackbacks and pingbacks usually appear within moments of publishing your blog entry, but remember that trackbacks and pingbacks can be moderated or disabled by the blog owners.

You can also verify that the trackback and pingback were sent successfully by clicking on Edit next to the blog entry you published and scrolling down below the Custom Fields. WordPress will display all the URLs that were notified about your blog entry.
Sometimes a blog may be having technical difficulties with the trackback or pingback system. If you believe that is the case, you can politely send the blog owner a message outlining the potential problem, being sure to include all necessary and relevant information for them to troubleshoot.
WordPress allows you to set your default ping status in the Options menu. If you know that the majority of your posts will have trackback/pingback enabled, setting it to accept them could make your blogging life a little easier.

From your admin panel, click on Options->Discussion and place a check mark next to “Allow link notifications from other Weblogs (pingbacks and trackbacks.)” and remember to click on Update Options when you’re finished.

 

[valdet]

On more than 90% of cases, such pingbacks come from blogs who run on auto-pilot and are managed by people who try to rank and profit from others' content.

As Chumps said it, is the safest way to delete them or not allow pingbacks and trackbacks when you write an actual post.

Although they are "rel=nofollowed", they will do much more harm than any good, as in that way you're passively linking to bad neighborhood.

Val.