Dummies Guide to Google Blogger Beta

Trackbacks are not implemented by Blogger which uses backlinks instead. See Pinging Simplified. Backlinks appear beneath your blog posts when someone mentions the permalink of your post on their blog. Permalinks are permanent links/URLs of your posts. For more information on permalinks see Linking to Another Article. To implement Trackbacks in Blogger you have to use another tool..........

If you want to respond to a post on a blog you can click 'Post a Comment' at the bottom and type in your response. That comment will be displayed below that post so that viewer's of that blog can read your comments. The author of that post will also read it and choose whether to respond to it or not with a return comment below your comment.


However, readers of your blog will never know whether or how that post inspired you. To inform your readers about this interesting post you choose to include an excerpt from it in your blog along with the permalink of that post. Now your readers can read the excerpt and if sufficiently interested will click on the permalink to visit that post and read it in full. But the author of that post will remain unaware that you have shown an interest in his/her post, unless your blogging software supports trackbacks.


If you have trackback support then that post is pinged and an excerpt of your post and the permalink to it will appear automatically at the foot of the source post. The owner can then visit your post and comment on it. This sets up 'conversations' throughout the blogosphere enriching and aiding the flow of ideas.


Blogger does not have trackbacks enabled so we have to use haloscan instead. For this goto Haloscan.com and register which is free. Then input your blogging username and password, click Next and choose which blog you wish to install it on. Backup your template and click Next and changes are made automatically to your template. Then login to Blogger and republish your blog.


To send a trackback publish your post in which you mention the post you are interested in and its permalink. Then login to Haloscan and click on "Send a Trackback Ping" tab. Fill the form and paste in the permalink of the source post as well as that of your post and submit. This will then appear below the source post if trackbacks have been enabled by the author.